Local To Local Dialogue: A Grassroot Women's Perspective On Good Governance

Local to Local Dialogue:
A Grassroots Women’s
Perspective on
Good Governance
UNITED NATIONS HUMAN

SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME
U R B A N G O V E R N A N C E T O O L K I T S E R I E S
Local to Local Dialogue:
A Grassroots Women’s Perspective on
Good Governance
UNITED NATIONS HUMAN

SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME
Urban Governance Toolkit Series
March 2004
Copyright  UN-HABITAT (United Nations Human Settlements Programme) and Huairou
Commission. All rights reserved. Printed in Nairobi, September 2004.
UN-HABITAT, P.O. Box 30030, GPO Nairobi 00100, Kenya
UN-HABITAT shall be entitled to all intellectual property and other proprietary rights,
including, but not limited to patents, copyrights and trademark, with regard to publication,
documents, materials and other works produced by each Party under this Agreement.
UN-HABITAT hereby grants GROOTS International a non-exclusive, non-transferable,
worldwide and royalty-free license to produce, use and sell such publications, documents,
materials and other works produced under this Agreement. GROOTS International transfers
this role to the Huairou Commission.
Urban Governance Toolkit Series
ISBN: 92-1-131718-5
HS/732/04E
2 U RB A N G OV E R N A N C E TO O L K I T S E R I E S
CONTENTS
Local to Local Dialogue: A Grassroots Women’s Perspective on Good Governance
Foreword................................................................................................................4
Preface...................................................................................................................6
1. Introduction.............................................................................................................8
1.1 Where the Local Dialogues Began..............................................................8
1.2 The Local to Local Dialogue Initiative..........................................................12
1.3 The Local to Local Dialogue Guide...............................................................13
1.4 Who is This Guide For?..............................................................................14
1.5 Governance, Good Governance and Grassroots Women.............................14
1.6 Localizing Good Governance.................................................................15
1.7 The Six Local to Local Dialogues................................................................17
2. Three Big Ideas................................................................................................19

2.1 From Beneficiaries and Clients to Citizens....................................................19
2.2 From Adversaries to Allies...........................................................................20
2.3 Political Transformations and the Redistribution of Power..........................20
3 Principles of Engagement..................................................................................21
3.1 Collective Action.....................................................................................22
3.2 Capacity Building....................................................................................24
3.3 Building Alliances.....................................................................................27
3.4 Demonstrating Capacities.........................................................................32
4. Experiencing Good Governance Internally...........................................................35
5. Assessing Dialogue Initiatives.............................................................................36
6. Conclusion.......................................................................................................38
Negotiating Priorities: Six Case Studies

Women Setting Agendas for Dialogue in Kenya........................................................39
Cleaning and Greening Neighbourhoods in Russia.....................................................46
Creating Common Agendas to Protect the Environment in Argentina..........................52
Face to Face with Procedures and Policies in Tanzania............................................57
A Playground for Breznice, Czech Republic.............................................................63
Supporting Local Authorities to Address Women’s Priorities in Uganda.......................68
Acknowledgements...............................................................................................73
Additional Resources...................................................................................76
Contact Information................................................................................................79
URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 3

Foreword
UN-HABITAT has for long been working with NGOs, civil society
organisations and women’s groups, in particular, to ensure that
services and opportunities in human settlements are accessible
to the people who are really in need. Increasing urbanisation
and feminisation of poverty means that poor women in cities are
a particularly vulnerable stakeholder group, and that special
emphasis needs to be placed on their needs and priorities, in
order to enable them to participate in and enjoy the benefits of
development. The UN-HABITAT Gender Policy, first adopted in
1996 and recently reviewed, is based on two important
objectives: (a) Women’s right to empowerment through
participation in human settlements development; and (b) Gender mainstreaming in human
settlements development.
Building and strengthening capacities of women’s groups to engage actively and
effectively in development decision-making, is one of the most important mechanisms
to achieve the aforementioned objectives. This publication Local to Local Dialogue: A
Grassroots Women’s Perspective on Good Governance, describes locally designed
strategies through which grassroots women’s groups initiate and engage in ongoing
dialogue with local authorities, with a view to influence policies, plans and programmes
in ways that address women’s priorities. The activities of these groups illustrate the
creative ways in which women use their skills and knowledge to mobilise communities,
raise resources, build alliances with local authorities and indeed, transform the institutions
around them, to advance the interests of women and their communities.
This publication has been developed under the umbrella of UN-HABITAT’s Global
Campaign on Urban Governance, which was launched in 1999 with the objective of
reducing urban poverty through improved urban governance. Recognising that women
are one of the biggest levers for positive change in society, the Campaign promotes the
involvement of women in decision-making at all levels. The theme of the Campaign –
“inclusiveness” – reflects both the campaign’s vision and strategy. The vision is to realise
the “Inclusive City,” a place where everyone, regardless of wealth, gender, age, race or
religion, is enabled to participate productively and positively in the opportunities cities
have to offer. Inclusive decision-making processes are an essential means to achieve
this and are the cornerstone of the campaign.
The Local to Local Dialogues described in this publication are illustrative of such inclusive
decision-making processes. The six case studies chronicle the experiences and efforts of
each of the women’s groups to identify priorities and negotiate with local authorities and in
some cases other government authorities. The six organizations that participated in the
Local to Local Dialogues funded by UN-HABITAT and USAID were: GROOTS Kenya;
The Information Centre of Independent Women’s Forum, Russia; The Centre of Services
and Exchange for the Southern Cone, Argentina; Women Advancement Trust, Tanzania;
The Mother Centres, Czech Republic; and Forum for Women in Democracy, Uganda. I
would like to commend the efforts of these organisations for making this work a reality.
I would also like to especially congratulate the Huairou Commission on their untiring
efforts in promoting women’s development since before and after the Beijing conference.
UN-HABITAT and the Huairou Commission wish to promote the concept of Local to Local
Dialogues, across sectors as well as across cities and countries. UN-HABITAT, through its
Global Campaign on Urban Governance, is working with a number of countries and cities
to raise awareness of, advocate for and build capacity for the adoption of key principles or
norms of good urban governance. Gender mainstreaming is an integral part of these
activities. The Local to Local Dialogue Tool is envisaged to be used to support gender
mainstreaming in National Action Plans in the Campaign countries.
I hope that the ideas expressed in this publication will be useful for both development
professionals and grassroots women whose work it seeks to reaffirm.
Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka

Executive Director
UN-HABITAT

PREFACE
The Huairou Commission is a network of networks working together to forge strategic
partnerships to advance the capacity of grassroots women worldwide to strengthen and
create sustainable communities. The Huairou Commission’s association with the Good
Urban Governance Programme of UN-HABITAT has focused on finding ways to make
democracy work for grassroots women. How do grassroots women realise the promise of
decentralization? Local to Local Dialogue sets out to understand how women in different
parts of the world are grappling with the practical ways to claim their citizenship.
“Governance” is a sanitised term that masks many messy realities. One such reality that
is frequently overlooked in discussions on governance is the question of power and power
sharing. Yet it is this which is at the heart of true democracy. This book addresses ways in
which grassroots women can reconfigure power relationships to advance their interests
and thereby transform the practice of governance. The strategies laid out in this guide are
not mere directives, but are drawn from experiences of grassroots women’s organizations
in different countries.
Local to Local Dialogue is the result of the accumulated efforts of many women all over
the world. The idea first surfaced in India in discussions with Sheela Patel, Director SPARC
and Prema Gopalan, Director of Swayam Shikshan Prayog. Sri Husnaini Sofjan facilitated
UNDP’s Urban Governance Initiative funding for four organizations in Asia to advance
existing negotiations with local authorities. The Local to Local Dialogue initiatives in six
countries were funded by UN-HABITAT and USAID. We would like to thank Esther Mwaura-
Muiru of Groots Kenya, Elizabeta Bozhkova of ICIWF in Russia, Patricia Munabe from
FOWODE in Uganda, Tabitha Siwale from Women Advancement Trust in Tanzania, Rut
Kolinska from The Czech Mother Centres in the Czech Republic and Liliana Rainero from
CISCSA in Argentina for co-ordinating the Dialogues in their countries. In addition, GROOTS
International funded the Local to Local Dialogues of the Stuttgart Mother Centres. We
would like to thank the local and national authorities who participated in these Dialogues
and continue to work towards advancing the interests of women and strengthening
democratic practice.
Swayam Shikshan Prayog, India and the Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work
were not officially part of this project but represent two organizations within the Huairou
Commission that have evolved a host of strategies for partnering with local authorities.
Hence their work has been mentioned several times in the guide.
UN-HABITAT’s Good Urban Governance Campaign, of which the Huairou Commission is

a partner, inspired this effort as we sought to link local efforts to a global campaign. We
are grateful to Paul Taylor for his ongoing support of the Huairou Commission and to Liz
Case, Raf Tuts and Shipra Narang, who provided useful inputs on previous drafts of this
document.
Suranjana Gupta is the principal author of this document but she was assisted by a large
team in both developing the framework and creating the final product. Achola Pala Okeyo,
Gender Advisor to the Huairou Commission, deserves special mention for her report of
the Local to Local Dialogues which the case studies in this document have drawn on.
Sandy Schilen, Global Facilitator of Groots International and Srilatha Batliwala, Research
Fellow at the Hauser Center for Non-Profit Organizations at Harvard University played a
crucial role in helping to develop the analytical framework for the guide. Emmy M’Mbwanga
in Kenya, Beatrice Mugambe in Uganda, Liza Bozhkova in Russia, Georgia Marman in
Argentina, Lucy Tesha Merere of Tanzania, Jitka Bartakova in the Czech Republic were
the authors of the Dialogues in six countries. Sheryl Feldman provided useful inputs and
feedback. Sangeetha Purushothaman interviewed the leaders of participating
organizations and suggested changes in previous drafts and moderated an ongoing e-
group on engendering governance through which Huairou Commission members shared
their evolving ideas on governance. Nina Kantcheva, assisted the direction of the
Dialogues from New York, translated Russian reports and edited drafts; Katie Miele
worked on several rewrites and formats for the document.
We hope that readers who find this book useful will join the Huairou Commission’s efforts
to address the challenge of giving grassroots women a greater voice in decision-making.
Jan Peterson
Chair, Huairou Commission

1. Introduction
Poor women are constantly struggling to feed their families, get clean drinking water and
access healthcare, education and shelter. Despite their contributions to the survival of
their households and the well being of their communities, grassroots women are excluded
For grassroots women
governance is not an from planning and decision-making processes. Women are perceived as either
abstract concept; it is beneficiaries or clients. In either case, low-income women are not seen as citizens who
part of their daily lives. can play an important role in transforming governance.
Governances is about
who gets what, who For the poor and marginalized, governance institutions are considered effective when
does what and who
decides who gets they deliver resources and services effectively. In order for this to occur, responsive
what. In other words, institutional arrangements must be created in collaboration with local and national
governances is about authorities.
rights, responsibilities,
and resource Grassroots women’s strategies for good governance address both the practical and the
allocations, and the
processes by which strategic needs of women. On the practical side, they address women’s material conditions:
these are decided how women can access better services, improve their living conditions and increase
upon. infrastructure for the community. On the strategic side, grassroots women’s efforts seek to
- Srilatha Batliwala, ensure that women are seen as agents of change by themselves, their communities and
Fellow, Hauser Center the state.
for Non Profit
Management, Harvard
University Grassroots women often have to be in dialogue not just with local authorities but also with
national or central governments. Our emphasis on the local draws attention to the fact
that all the dialogues between women and authorities are grounded in the local realities of
women and bring to the surface their priorities as specific, concrete issues that affect their
neighbourhoods, families and communities. The “local-ness” of the dialogues emphasises
the local perspectives from which communities operate and seek to demand accountability
from national and local authorities.
Because the priorities of women are inextricably intertwined with the needs of their
families and communities, this book often refers to the interests and priorities of
communities and families rather than just women. But it is true that in all the examples
discussed women have been at the centre of the negotiations on behalf of their
communities.
1.1 Where the Local to Local Dialogues Began
The Huairou Commission observed that since the late 1980s there have been organizations
both inside and outside their own network, which were steadily advancing grassroots
women’s agendas in institutional and policy arenas. Swayam Shikshan Prayog in India, a
member of the Huairou Commission, is one such organization that has been identifying
strategies to give grassroots women a voice in decision-making. The German Mother
Centres and the Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work are other examples of
such organizations.
A source of great inspiration outside the Huairou Commission’s network has been the
SPARC. SPARC has supported the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan
(members of Slum Dwellers International) in getting city planning and development
authorities to address the needs of poor women and their communities.
The Local to Local Dialogues between community groups and local authorities were initiated
by members of the Asia Women and Shelter Network (AWAS) with seed funding from a
regional programme of the United Nations Development Programme, The Urban
Governance Initiative (UNDP-TUGI). The concept of Local to Local Dialogues was
introduced in three countries in Asia – India, Malaysia and Nepal.
India
Women and Reconstruction in India

When a devastating earthquake struck Maharashtra in India in 1993, killing close to 10,000
people and destroying over 50 villages and damaging homes in 1,200 villages, the
Government was thrown into a state of crisis. In the state-led reconstruction programme
that followed the earthquake in Maharashtra, women’s collectives, supported by Swayam
Shikshan Prayog, worked with district authorities to disseminate information on entitlements,
how to access these and how to repair and strengthen their houses using earthquake-safe
technology. The women also learned construction and were able to monitor the
implementation of the Government’s repair and strengthening programme, supported by
the World Bank. Monitoring the programme meant that women first had to disseminate
information on entitlements in their communities; then they had to ensure that earthquake-
resistant techniques were being used to repair damaged houses. At regular meetings with
officials, women would report on the progress made on construction as well as the reasons
for which construction was not proceeding.
The public roles that women took on in the reconstruction process dramatically changed
the way in which their own communities and their governments perceived them.
Communities saw how valuable women’s assistance was in accessing state entitlements.
The Government was forced to acknowledge that women were key partners who had
improved the effectiveness of the reconstruction programme by assisting in information
dissemination, providing feedback to officials about communities, preventing corruption
by reporting corrupt practices and ensuring that communities knew how to access
entitlements.
Toilets in Indian cities

There simply are not enough toilets in Indian slums. Women literally have nowhere to go,
or are forced to walk long distances for privacy. Conditions are unhygienic and safety is a
serious concern. The National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF) and Mahila Milan (MM),
supported by an NGO called SPARC, have been working in Mumbai and other cities in
India for over a decade to address the problem of sanitation for the urban poor.
When toilets in slums become unusable it happens for many reasons. The Federation has
found that sanitation solutions designed and planned by the government are unviable.
Communities need to participate in developing sanitation facilities because they know

what will and won’t work in their communities. By experimenting with different options and
building their skills in construction and negotiation, communities have developed a model
in which communities plan, construct and maintain their own toilets in their settlements.
The State brings sewers and water supply to the site and pays for the materials.
In the city of Pune, a partnership between the municipal government, NGOs and community-
based organizations has built more than 400 community toilet blocks. They have also
demonstrated the potential of municipal-community partnerships to improve conditions for
low-income groups.
Some women community leaders took on contracts themselves and managed the whole
construction process, supported by engineers and architects from SPARC. It took a while
for the women in each community to develop the confidence that they could manage this
process. As one leader, Savita Sonawane, noted, “In the beginning we did not know what a
drawing or a plinth was. We did not understand what a foundation was or how to do the
plastering. But as we went along, we learnt more and more and now we can build toilets
with our eyes closed.” Over time, these women’s groups gained confidence and as they
learned how to deal with the local government bureaucracy, they became active in dealing
with other government officials. They also kept a close watch on costs.
This programme enabled the reconfiguring of relationships among the city government,
NGOs and communities. The city government recognized the capacity of community
organizations to develop their own solutions, supported by local NGOs. The city authorities
changed their role from being a toilet provider to setting standards, funding the capital cost
of construction and providing water and electricity.1
Women & the Changing City in Penang, Malaysia

The Local to Local Dialogue in Malaysia was undertaken jointly by Penang Heritage Trust
with support from the Asia West Pacific Network for Urban Conservation (AWPNUC).
George Town, Penang, is a historic port city of great cultural diversity. In the last 30 years, the
Control of Rent Act protected inner city communities inhabiting about 10,000 pre-1940
buildings from market forces, while new housing areas expanded in the periphery. With the
Repeal of the Control of Rent Act at the turn of the millennium, many households are facing
rental hikes and evictions, accelerating the decline of population in the inner city
neighbourhoods. In addition the plan to restore the community market also threatens the
situation of residents in the area.
The Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) undertook the Local to Local Dialogues in George
Town, Penang, to explore how women were affected by the changes in the city and how
local government can improve quality of life and opportunities for women. The first phase of
the Dialogues consisted of small dialogues hosted by non-governmental organisations and
community groups to identify and prioritise issues. This was followed by the main Local-
Local Dialogue, which brought together various stakeholders from community and
government. Broad policy recommendations as well as concretised proposals were put
1
This is excerpted from two documents …Toilet talk and “Community Toilets in Pule and Other Indian Cities” by
Sundar Burra and Sheela Patel in PLA notes, special issue June 2002
forward to pursue follow-up actions. Approximately 200 participants participated in the
Local-Local Dialogue, of whom nearly three-fourths were women.
The event provided a forum for the community women – normally members of the silent
majority – to learn more about the city’s plans to restore the Cambell Street Market, and to
voice their opposition to top-down planning which ignored their needs. Community women
were supported by women professionals who asserted that removing the market would
violate principles of planning, as it would undermine the economic and social base of the
community. The politicians and bureaucrats both were compelled to recognise that the
maintenance of the community market was necessary to support the government’s vision of
a ‘living heritage city’.
The Dialogue also highlighted the fact that it was not only buildings but also people, that
had to be ‘sensitised’ to the special needs of the disabled community —and this included
the police, bus drivers, civil servants etc. Traffic crossings, for example, have to be accessible
not only to the disabled, but the elderly and the very young too. However, this is perhaps the
first time that the case for disabled access policies and implementation was being presented
before a public forum. Both government and ordinary people were educated about the
attitudinal and technical requirements of providing an enabling environment, and the State
Women’s Development Committee and local authority promised to follow up on the dialogue.
Allegations of unfair allocations, inefficiency and corruption in processing social housing

applications have been circulating for some time. However, previous community surveys
and mobilisation helped participants communicate their concerns clearly. The affected
applicants who were present at the event stood by their complaints. They highlighted the
plight of the urban poor, representing hundreds of other poor families and women-headed
households who were suffering the same predicament. Politicians and bureaucrats
promised to monitor the situation more closely.
Overall, there was a realisation of the inter-relatedness of urban issues. Accessible design,
heritage conservation, public safety, more social housing and improved security of tenure,
better community amenities, would all be improved with more community feedback, bottom-
up planning and public participation in decision-making.
Securing the right to live in the city, Kathmandu, Nepal

The Local to Local Dialogue in Nepal was undertaken by LUMANTI –Support Group for
Shelter in Kathmandu, which focused on the issues surrounding women and the security of
shelter.
The Local to Local Dialogues process initiated by LUMANTI in Kathmandu was divided
into two phases: the preparation of Family Identity Cards and a two-day workshop. The
family ID cards of the squatter families were prepared and jointly issued by the Women’s
Federation (Nepal Mahila Ekta Samaj) and Squatters’ Federation (Nepal Basobas Basti
Sanrakshan Samaj). The provision of these identity cards to squatters was a historical
breakthrough as it symbolised the city’s recognition of the rights of squatters as citizens,
thus providing them with a form of secure tenure. On the second day of the workshop the
Mayor of KMC distributed the ID cards to the squatters in Balaju community.

The dialogue workshop that followed had more than 100 participants of whom 75% were
women, with the majority of the participants coming from the urban poor communities. The
workshop addressed women’s priorities in relation to safe and secure housing, strategies to
address this, the roles and responsibility of various level of governments as well as NGOs
and communities in collaborating to find solutions.
Squatters discussed their concerns and why they were compelled to encroach on public
lands, such as a campus compound in one city. Officials from the local authority, Kathmandu
Metropolitan Council (KMC) recognized that they needed inputs and help from the community
in policy formulation process to ensure that that implementation and activities will have
direct benefit for the target groups.
The Dialogues brought to the attention of local authorities that one prerequisite of good
governance is the recognition of all inhabitants as true citizens who contribute in their own
unique ways to tackle key problems faced by cities. The provision of identity cards was one
way to recognise poor communities as legitimate citizens who have a key role in problem
solving in the city. Participants from districts other than Kathmandu were inspired by this
Dialogue process and decided to take this Local to Local Dialogue to other districts. Active
participation of women was seen in the process of the Dialogues.
These initiatives from Asia2 have in common ongoing dialogue as the basis for their
success. Their experiences point to the fact that wherever communities have influenced
government authorities to respond to their needs by involving communities in planning,
designing, implementing and monitoring programmes, it has been because of an ongoing
engagement through which women’s groups and their communities have been able to
devise solutions that work for both sets of actors. In other words, partnerships with
authorities require an investment in a local dialogue process. The Huairou Commission
decided to take the strategy of Local to Local Dialogues to grassroots women’s groups
in other parts of the world to encourage these groups to test out their abilities to collaborate
with and influence local authorities.
1.2 The Local to Local Dialogue Initiative
Local to Local Dialogues are locally designed strategies whereby grassroots women’s
groups initiate and engage in ongoing dialogue with local authorities to negotiate a range
of development issues and priorities to influence policies, plans and programmes in ways
that address women’s priorities.
The four organizations in Asia that first put into practice the notion of the Local to Local
Dialogues represent mature groups who have over many years developed a scale of
operation and robust relationships with their governments enabling them to work as
partners. The Huairou Commission was interested in exploring how groups that do not
2
These initiatives were funded by The Good Urban Governance Initiative (TUGI).
operate on a comparable scale would adapt the idea of Local to Local Dialogues in their
own contexts. The six organizations that participated in the Local to Local Dialogues
funded by UN-HABITAT and USAID were:
• GROOTS Kenya, Kenya

• The Information Centre of Independent Women’s Forum, Russia
• The Centre of Services and Exchange for the Southern Cone, Argentina
• Women Advancement Trust, Tanzania
• The Mother Centres, Czech Republic
• Forum for Women in Democracy, Uganda
The Local to Local Dialogues in Kenya, Russia, Argentina, Tanzania, the Czech Republic
and Uganda point to the creative ways in which women use their skills and knowledge to
mobilize communities, raise resources and build alliances with local authorities to advance
the interests of women and their communities.
Readers should know that the organizations are of varied levels in terms of scale, resources,
constituencies and capacities and this is reflected in their varied experiences. This variation
in capacity combined with the diverse political contexts in which the dialogues were located
meant that each group’s agenda was different.
1.3 The Local to Local Dialogue Guide
The first segment of this book is a guide to framing governance in a grassroots women’s
perspective. A host of development agencies have defined governance, discussed the
criteria for good governance and identified the reasons for bad governance. However,
very little has been said about what grassroots women perceive as being the central
issues of governance, and this document attempts to respond to that.
The guide also looks at the numerous ways in which women are trying to transform the
institutions around them. The strategies women use to influence institutions are not a
theoretical list of strategies. The examples provided demonstrate that all the strategies
discussed here have been used by women’s groups. These strategies are drawn from—
but are not restricted to—the six Local to Local Dialogue initiatives funded by UN-HABITAT.
The experiences and insights discussed here include those of other efforts within the
Huairou Commission’s network.
The second segment of this document is the six case studies that chronicle the
experiences and efforts of each of the women’s groups to identify priorities and negotiate
with local authorities and in some cases other government authorities. The case studies
attempt to highlight strategies and accomplishments of groups, keeping in mind however
that for the women’s groups and communities involved, the Dialogues are intended as
a tool for ongoing engagement that has only just begun.

While in some cases women have successfully negotiated access to resources for
their communities from local authorities, in other cases the negotiations are ongoing. In
both situations, women are beginning to understand and practice more strategic
engagement with authorities by mobilising groups, building their information base and
capacities, and building strategic alliances. Through their dialogue with state actors,
women are beginning to interface with and understand the power structures and decision-
making processes of government institutions and how women can impact these.
1.4 Who is This Guide For?
The question of audience is an interesting one. It raises the question of how people actually
learn. How do professionals learn? How do grassroots women really learn? Having debated
these questions, the Huairou Commission decided to use this document as an opportunity
to articulate its collective thinking on the question of women and governance. We hope
that the ideas expressed here will be useful for both development professionals and
grassroots women whose work it seeks to reaffirm.
For development professionals, this guide provides a new perspective on governance

that enriches the debates on governance. As far as grassroots women readers are
concerned, the guide attempts to convey to community leaders and women that
governance is not something outside their everyday efforts to negotiate for improved
access to resources, services and decision-making processes. If the ideas, experiences
or strategies in this document resonate with them, it means that they are in fact participating
in efforts to en-gender and democratise governance.
1.5 Governance, Good Governance and Grassroots Women
Since the 1990s, the question of governance has been at the heart of the development
debate. It was clear to aid agencies that development aid had failed to bring about the
kind of institutional changes required. Good governance was identified as the missing
ingredient.
What is Governance?
The term “governance” refers to the ways in which institutions function. It is how power
and resources are distributed and managed within institutional structures. The term
encompasses all the traditions, institutions and processes that determine how power is
exercised, citizens are given a voice, and decisions are made on issues of public
concern.3
3
Institute on Governance. “What is Governance? Getting to a Definition” as found in Institute on Governance. 2002
(December).
4
Kauzya, John-Mary. “Reconceptualising Governance.” UNDP: Discussion Paper 2, 1997.
5
UN-HABITAT. “Global Campaign for Good Urban Governance Concept Paper.” UN-HABITAT: November 2000.
What is Good Governance? “The Local to Local
Good governance is the exercise of this authority with the participation, interest and Dialogue is a
livelihoods of the governed as the driving force.4 UN-HABITAT states, “Good urban methodology where
dialogues become the
governance must enable women and men to access the benefits of urban citizenship. means to open up
Good urban governance, based on the principle of urban citizenship, affirms that no channels of policy
man, woman or child can be denied access to the necessities of urban life, including discussion for
adequate shelter, security of tenure, safe water, sanitation, a clean environment, health, grassroots
education and nutrition, employment and public safety and mobility. Through good communities,
amplifying an
urban governance, citizens are provided with the platform which will allow them to use understanding of why
their talents to the full to improve their social and economic conditions.”5 This idea entails gender matters, why
citizens working with governments to address all of these needs in ways that improve participation is key to
the lives of citizens. local decision-making
and how democracy
can be achieved in a
While much has been written about criteria for good governance and the features of good very practical way….”
governance, little has been said about how marginalized groups such as women from - Dr. Achola Pala
poor communities can actually influence governance structures and create institutions Okeyo, Advisor to the
that are inclusive of women and communities living in poverty. Huairou Commission
1.6 Localising Good Governance
Societies ascribe different sets of roles to men and women. This means that men and
women use and contribute to living environments in different ways. Yet, planners and
policymakers frequently leave out the analysis and priorities of grassroots women when
designing such programmes.6
Interventions to increase women’s voice in planning and policy processes have generally
focused on legislation and women’s participation in electoral politics. These efforts have
generally established legal entitlements for women, and sought to institute quotas to
increase the number of women in political office. But laws, policies and programs are only
as effective as women’s abilities to claim the rights and resources. The Local to Local
Dialogues are a means by which women engage governing institutions to attain concrete
outcomes to realise the opportunities created through laws, policies and programmes.
Distinct from one-time policy consultations in which governments control the venues,
agenda, invitees and what information will be used, Local to Local Dialogues are ongoing
engagements between women’s groups and local authorities in which women set the
agenda and initiate a dialogue with local authorities and evolve relationships of people
with influence.
Given the power differences between grassroots women’s collectives and local
authorities, an ongoing negotiation with local authorities entails an investment in building
6
Beall, Jo. “Urban Governance: Why Gender Matters.” UNDP: Gender in Development Monograph Series #1. March
1996.

and mobilising women’s capacities. Women’s groups have used these Dialogues in
varied ways to mobilize their communities and interact with government authorities in
order to influence decision-makers.
The Local to Local Dialogues discussed here present efforts of women’s collectives
and communities in six countries. In most cases, local and national governments as well
as citizens are entering uncharted territory as they try out new ways of engaging with
each other and working together. The Dialogues are an investment in a two-way learning
process in which local authorities and communities move into new roles. Thus, the
dialogue process has a dual purpose:
1. To build women’s capacities and empower them to influence decision-making;
and
2. To shift how local authorities respond to poor women and perceive them as
constituent-problem solvers rather than as client-beneficiaries.
In these ways, the Dialogue process works make a concrete difference in the lives of the
poor.
Local to Local Dialogue is an evolving methodology but the first round of Dialogues
provide a glimpse of the many complexities that women’s groups are negotiating in
their engagements with authorities. Women’s groups from the six communities involved
used the dialogues to demonstrate their capacities to find innovative solutions to important
problems and identify ways in which these solutions could be scaled-up in partnership
with local authorities and the state.
In the six Local to Local Dialogues supported by the Huairou Commission, women
organised around their priorities. Some women’s groups advanced further in their
negotiations with the state—they were part of joint planning processes; while others
invested in gathering accurate information and demonstrated capacities to solve problems.
Other, less experienced groups simply used the Local to Local Dialogues to interact
with state institutions and familiarise themselves with how these institutions function.
1.7 The Six Local to Local Dialogues
Location NGO Focus

Kenya GROOTS Kenya GROOTS Kenya facilitated a process
through which slum communities
identified questions of infrastructure,
security, they wanted to address in
collaboration with authorities.
Russia Information Centre of ICIWF is concerned with how to find

Independent Women's ways to strengthen the resource base,
Forum (ICIWF) information base and build capacities
of women to create safe
neighbourhoods and find ways to
improve and maintain community
infrastructure.
Argentina Centre of Services and CISCSA is working with four

Exchange for the community-based organizations
Southern Cone (CISCSA) (Family Community Market, Council of
Neighbourhood Centres, the Women's
Council, and the Cosquín River
Commission) to collectively create a
plan for sustainable use of the
resources from the Cosquín River.
Tanzania Women Advancement Two groups supported by WAT worked

Trust (WAT) to negotiate with local authorities to
reclaim collectively purchased land and
gain legal status for their group.
Czech Mother Centres The Mother Centres organised a

Republic campaign with local authorities, the
media and schools to get the city to
fund a playground for children.
Uganda Forum for Women in FOWODE organised a workshop for

Democracy (FOWODE) elected women and communities to
help women set priorities and identify
strategies to address settlement
problems.

The Huairou Commission
The Huairou Commission is a coalition of six grassroots women’s networks who
work in partnership with development professionals. Together they forge “strategic
partnerships to advance the capacity of grassroots women worldwide to strengthen
and create sustainable communities.”
Grassroots women issued their first major international statement on community

development at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995.
Meeting at the conference’s NGO margins in the town of Huairou (why-row), they
laid out a platform that incorporated their uniquely practical knowledge of
communities. Its points were recognized as being essential to the creation of sound
development policies and the Huairou Commission was established, thus moving
grassroots women towards the centre of international policy-making.
Huairou has institutionalised its allegiance to its grassroots source. The core of its
policy setting council is made uo of representatives from international women’s
network organizations. Deeply rooted is local communities, the council negotiates
partnerships with other NGOs, the United Nations, local governments, parliamentarians,
scholars and researchers. For its work in global governance, specifically, Huairou
has partnered with UN-HABITAT, UNDP, UNIFEM, International Union of Local Authorities,
and the City of Montreal.
While women’s participation in decision-making in global forums have been a major

focus in Huairou’s interventions since the beginning, in recent years, it has increasingly
emphasised local governance. Its 2003-6 strategic plan promises to take its local
governance work to even greater levels of effectiveness. Follow its growth on the
Huairou website: www.huairou.org.
2. Three Big Ideas Several strategies that
women are using to
dialogue with state actors
2.1 From Beneficiaries and Clients to Citizens attempt to convey the fact
that women are neither
true clients in a free
When the state interacts with grassroots women’s groups or takes decisions on behalf market nor are they
of women, there is a tendency to see women either as beneficiaries or as clients. passive beneficiaries.
In fact, many state-led reforms around the delivery of resources and services seek to
change women from beneficiaries to clients. In most cases, this means getting people
to pay for services provided by the state (and increasingly, by the private sector).
The term “clients” suggests that grassroots women are buyers in a free market with a
range of products and services from which to choose. It also implies that the willingness
and ability to pay, in other words demand, drives the quality of services. When dissatisfied
with a particular service, clients in a free market are expected to move to another service
provider. In reality, communities living in poverty have few choices. Whether they belong
to the government or to the private sector, service providers usually have a monopoly in
the market and poor people are forced to pay for these services, regardless of their quality.
The term “clients” also suggests that women and communities who previously availed of
free services are now being incorporated into the formal cash economy. In reality, these
communities have always been “paying” in some form or other for the resources and
services they use. Frequently, these payments are in the form of bribes or part of an
informal market.
Far from being passive beneficiaries waiting for state handouts, women are organising to
find innovative solutions to their everyday problems of housing, healthcare, childcare,
education, livelihoods, water supply and sanitation. That is, they are engaging with the
state as citizens, who are ready to take an active role in problem solving with the support
of the government.
Asserting Citizenship
In the Czech Republic, women from the Mother Centre in Breznice decided that their
children needed a playground. They approached the local authorities to give them one.
The women then went on to organise a media campaign, involve schools and helped to
raise funds to make the playground a reality. Women were not acting like beneficiaries but
partners to local authorities, sharing the responsibilities for implementing their ideas.
In Turkey, with help from the Foundation for the Support of Women’s Work, women from
disaster hit communities organised and began running women and children’s centres in
the temporary housing settlements in Adapazari and Izmit. Based on this experience, the
Foundation negotiated a partnership agreement with the SHCEK, the General Directorate
of Social Services, in which the women’s collectives rather than the Government would
manage these centres while the Government would provide the infrastructure. So women
were not beneficiaries waiting for the government to set up childcare services for them,
instead they proactively set up these services and asked the government to support them.

“In Russia, initial 2.2 From Adversaries to Allies
workshops organized by
the citizen’s group of
Solneichnyi, one of the In most cases neither national governments nor local authorities have the institutional
most active cities in the mechanisms to engage with grassroots women or their communities in ways that can
province of Saratov, was generate collaborative solutions to problems. Grassroots women share this problem
less a dialogue about with many other marginalized groups, who then resort to protests, demonstrations and
finding solutions and
letters of complaint to advance their causes.
more about writing
letters of complaint to
the government.” Citizens need to find new ways to engage with authorities if globalization, decentralization
—Local to Local and devolution is to serve citizens’ interests. Without this they will revert to patterns of
Dialogue Report from engagement that reflect their historical relationship with the state. Some of the “old ways”
ICIWF, Russia
in which citizens relate to the state are by protesting, demonstrating or simply waiting for
the state to take action. Grassroots women have to find ways to work with state authorities
to jointly find solutions to the everyday problems that their communities face.
2.3 Political Transformation and the Redistribution of Power
Much of the discussion on good governance appears to be about reforming institutions.

Yet these debates rarely acknowledge that dysfunctional institutions persist because there
are powerful interests that support such institutions and benefit from them. Thus, reforming
institutions entails a redistribution of power. Women’s groups engaging with institutions to
transform governance must empower themselves in order to reconfigure the power
relationships among women and the state in ways that enable poor women to influence
these institutions.
By acquiring skills, knowledge and assets; by creating collectives, working on scale

and by building alliances, women are working to tip the balance of power in their favour.
This will then enable women to influence the policies and programmes of the government.
It is this transformation that would help the state to see women as potential allies, rather
than beneficiaries or clients.
3. Principles of Engagement
How can women engage constructively with decision-makers to promote accountability to
citizens otherwise marginalized from decision-making processes?
In 2002, a group of Turkish women from disaster-hit communities visited disaster-hit

communities in India to exchange experiences and review the reconstruction efforts of
both communities and governments. A recurring theme in the discussions during this
learning exchange was how women’s collectives are working to influence authorities.
Based on observations of the Sakhi Women’s Federations’ achievements in India and
experiences of women’s collectives in Turkey, Hamiye Yacizi, one of the Turkish women,
summarised the key strategies that inform women’s engagement with government officials:
• “Women have to collectively address problems if they want success. Take
collective, not individual problems to officials.
• Visit officials regularly. Don’t be discouraged. Show them that women have
to be taken seriously and that we won’t give up easily.
• “Be prepared by collecting information on their settlements so that they can
contest the information the officials have.
• “Women should approach officials as partners. Don’t go as victims . . . don’t
always complain. Help to find a solution.”
These remarks highlight the four key areas that grassroots women must address in their
negotiations with state actors:
I. Collective Action
II. Capacity Building
III. Building Alliances
IV. Demonstrating Capacities
These four strategies used by women’s groups to negotiate with authorities are discussed
in this guide: collective action, capacity building, demonstrating capacities and alliance
building.
Political transformation requires the strategies discussed in this toolkit be used in tandem
with one another rather than in a sequential, linear manner. The multiple strategies that
women use to influence the state complement one another. They cannot be viewed in
isolation. Collectives are strengthened by demonstrations of their capacities; their
capacities are enhanced through the negotiation process; their capacities are expanded
when they scale-up operations. Large scale organised operations by community based
organizations who have a set of skills to manage resources compel local and national
governments to respond to the demands of communities. Each element should thus
be seen as one piece of the good governance puzzle.

“Women have to 3.1 Collective Action
collectively address
problems if they want Grassroots women recognise that they are rarely able to gain from individual negotiations.
success.”
Collective efforts to influence state actors have been far more successful than individual
—Hamiye Yacizi,
Community Leader, ones. Increasingly, women are recognising the power of networks of collectives across
Izmit, Turkey neighbourhoods, villages and cities. When individual women break away from rigid
institutional structures they are deified or vilified. It is easier for powerful interests to
isolate them. They are seen as exceptions to the norm. This does not help to create
institutional change. It simply enables the marginalisation of those who threaten the status
quo.7
In some cases the structures or formations that

women’s collectives operate from have been
mandated by the state, for example, the Territorial
Self Governing Committees (TSGCs) in Russia; or
the Council of Neighbourhood Centres in Argentina.
In India, Mahila Mandals or women’s collectives
were created by the government in the 1980s as
part of literacy programmes.
While state mandated organizations have the official

recognition of the government, women have to
ensure that these organizations address their
Grassroots women working together in Russia agendas. For women initiated collectives, it is quite
the opposite. Being initiated by women, there is a
strong sense of ownership and thus women set the agendas of the organization. It is to
gain the legitimacy and recognition from the state that these collectives invariably have
to struggle.
Collective Action at Work

Regardless of origin, all women’s collectives must arm themselves with information, skills,
resources and allies if they are to influence policies, as seen in the following Local to Local
Dialogue examples.
State Mandated Collectives:
In Russia, the decentralization process and municipal reform has resulted in the creation
of Territorial Self Governing Committees (TSGCs). These TSGCs are expected to find
local solutions to local problems in collaboration with other local actors. However the
Committees did not have any experience in improving their neighbourhoods. The TSGC in
the Zonalnyi demonstrated how the self-governing committee can actually organise
communities to maintain the existing infrastructure of their neighbourhoods and partner
with communities to get the national governments to respond to community priorities. The
TSGCs were already recognized by the government, but they had to work with the community
and then the government to demonstrate to the communities that TSGCs could in fact
address community issues.
7
Batliwala, Srilatha. “ Workshop on Women’s Empowerment” at WEDO: New York, 2003.
Women Initiated Collectives
In Turkey, women initiated collective action around childcare and pre-school education in
their temporary housing settlements. After the 1999 earthquake, women in the tent cities got
together to advocate for better sanitation and food. Equipped with this experience in the
tents, they later went on to organise and run women and children’s centres in the temporary
housing settlements that they moved to. In addition to running the centre, the women began
to meet regularly with government authorities to improve their living conditions and find out
about the Government’s permanent housing programme. Women in these collectives
realised the value of working as a collective on their priorities. But they had to go through a
negotiation with the state to be seen as legitimate actors in the decisions that the government
was making to permanently re-house disaster hit families.
Critical Mass of Actors

Creating a widespread network or a critical mass of actors is an intrinsic part of reconfiguring
institutional arrangements. The knowledge that there are thousands of women who face
similar problems and are working together to find solutions reaffirms women’s own
commitment to create change. The feeling of solidarity through regular interaction among
women’s collectives energises and enriches the learning creating a widespread network
process.
From an advocacy perspective, widespread participation is necessary to demonstrate

the viability of community-based solutions to the state and to leverage resources and
policy support to accommodate the needs of
communities. While the state will often disregard the
demands of a few, it can rarely afford not to engage with
or not to respond to the demands of large numbers.
Priority Setting and Consensus Building

A key element of the mobilisation process is bringing
collectives or communities together to discuss issues
and reach a consensus on how to prioritise their actions.
Civil society organizations, communities and women’s
groups have to invest in continually communicating
among each other to agree on an agenda for advocacy
Women’s Group Representatives Consulting One Another in
and identify areas for collaboration. Kenya
Priority Setting and Consensus Building

In Nairobi, Kenya, the women in the slums of Mathare 4 organised a series of meetings
among the women’s self help groups to identify the priorities of women in the Mathare 4
slums. The women identified HIV/AIDS, substance abuse and the lack of secure tenure
and consequently the lack of basic services such as water and street lighting as the problems
that they wanted to address.

“We want to use our In Cosquin, Argentina, the Local to Local process was used primarily to bring together
new position to solve the community based organizations of the Inter-Community River Group, The Family
other common Community Market (an organization of family based entrepreneurs) and the Council of
problems concerning Neighbourhood Centres to discuss how the pollution of river resources was impacting the
children. Some ideas livelihoods of communities and strategize around what action to take. Through the series of
we have are ensuring events they organised – meeting, workshops, a river marathon – the Dialogues not only
children can walk raised awareness among community actors but also drew the attention of local authorities.
safely to school, the This was the first step in the direction of bringing government attention to community
reconstruction of a
public swimming pool, priorities.
new ecological
programs, etc.” Success empowers groups and encourages them to work together
- Report on Local to A crucial element in sustaining a dynamic mobilising process is success. No matter how
Local Dialogue in small these successes are, it is important for the group to experience the success
Breznice
through collective action. It is for this reason that it is important for women’s collectives to
simultaneously use multiple strategies that address multiple issues. The multiplicity of
efforts ensures that that there are some successes, which encourage women’s groups
to stay together and keep trying.
3.2 Capacity Building
In order to strengthen their position in any negotiation with authorities, increase their
leverage and make the somewhat protracted dialogue process a worthwhile investment,
women’s groups need to build their capacities.
The Local to Local Dialogues as a capacity building

tool
Since much of their learning is through experience and
practice rather than through instruction and classroom
learning, it will rarely occur before or outside the
negotiation process. Thus the dialogue process is itself
the site of learning. It provides opportunities for women
to learn to negotiate with authorities. This includes a range
of areas such as understanding hierarchies,
Mothers in the Czech Republic Raising Money for their
understanding where power is located and learning how
Playground Project to communicate strategically with authorities.
Capacity Building through Dialogues

In Tanzania, the Mpambano Women’s Group and Mshikamano Housing Group in Dar es
Salaam, found that advancing the Dialogue meant that they had to learn about the legislation,
regulations and procedures for grievance redressal. They also had to invest in understanding
how the municipal structure functioned and where the decision-making powers are located.
In the Czech Republic, members the Mother Centre Pampeliska said that the Dialogue
Process had helped them to sharpen their skills in problem solving and negotiation, learn
about local politics and learn how to raise funds. During this negotiation the women also
said that they had to build their writing skills because they had to keep written records of
discussions with local authorities, write letters and proposals to raise money for their
playground.
In Uganda, FOWODE organised a workshop which helped participants learn how to

strategize to negotiate with local authorities. Some things workshop participants learned
included how to present issues to local and central governments, the importance of gathering
updated information and conveying it in their dialogues and how important it was to build
networks of community based actors to create a critical mass of actors to support women’s
priorities.
In Kenya, the women’s self help groups in Mathare supported by Groots Kenya used the
Local to Local Dialogues to spend time first reviewing their work and discussing their priorities
and then learning how to negotiate with authorities. Through these activities they were building
their capacities to collectively address problems in their settlements and present these to
officials.
Building capacities to manage resources

While women have learned to manage resources through practice, this set of capacities
and skills can be learned outside the negotiation process. Many grassroots women
have years of experience in managing childcare centres, managing their own financial
resources, or accessing and disseminating information.
Building Capacities
In Germany, The Stuttgart Mother Centre has spent many years managing childcare
facilities with very meagre resources. But they found that their depth of experience in this
helped them to negotiate with other actors on how the Intergenerational House – a building
that the Mother Centre would be sharing with eldercare service providers and kindergarten
– should be designed.
In Turkey, women’s collectives supported by FSWW learned to set up and manage their
own women and children’s centres where they organised childcare, pre-school education
in the earthquake hit areas of the Marmara region, so in a negotiation with the government,
women know that this is something they are experts in and can use this to leverage
agreements with local authorities.
In India, women’s groups supported by SSP have been building their capacities both in and
outside their interactions with government. They have been mobilising community resources,
learning construction and organising the construction of their own information centres. The
construction of a building requires a range of skills that include acquiring land, raising
money, buying materials, keeping inventories and supervising construction. This means
that the women’s collectives are being empowered to collectively manage and control
resources, which means that women have a range of capacities that they can bring to a
negotiating table.

Building and demonstrating a strong information base
One of the most valuable resources that women can bring to the table in a coalition with
the government is accurate and up to date information on their settlements and
communities. Authorities always need information; they need to know that programmes
are working for people. The women need to show that as partners to authorities they can
bring updated, accurate information about what is going on in communities. The processes
by which information is gathered by women often combine information gathering with
mobilising, organising and collective analysis. The information that women bring is usually
more reliable than the numbers and data that officials collect.
Women in Turkey Using Information Strategically

Following the Marmara earthquake in 1999, women in the prefabricated settlements in
Turkey used information collection and analysis as a means to building their capacities,
building a sound information base and creating a basis for negotiation with authorities.
In Duzce, women came together at women and children’s centres. They organised a
survey of 1,200 households in the temporary prefabricated settlements to identify
homeowners and tenants and to find out the extent to which houses were damaged in the
earthquake. Women prepared a questionnaire and went door to door to meet families. This
not only helped understand the extent of house damage, but also helped more women find
out about local women and children’s centres. The information gathered by the women
was then used to counter the Government’s information regarding the extent to which
houses were habitable. The women then invited local officials for a discussion of their
concerns about resettlement. The questions women asked officials included what would
happen to tenants, where permanent housing sites were, who was supervising the quality of
construction and how women can get involved in assisting with the resettlement of families.
In Adapazari, women surveyed the settlement and created a map showing the locations of
shops, markets, schools, medical centres and community centres. This led to a discussion
on the extent to which residents in the temporary prefabricated settlements had access to
goods and services. The information collected was then used to go to government officials
and discuss ways of improving access to services.
Consolidating Knowledge and Sharing Learning8

Connected to capacity building is the need for women’s
collectives to have a space to share experiences, reflect,
analyse and learn from their experiences. These
processes play a crucial role in enabling women to learn
from collective experiences and bring the lessons from
experiences into decision-making arenas. In short,
women’s groups need to develop mechanisms that
A Meeting in Argentina Where Organizations Could Exchange
enable them to process their knowledge and experiences
Experiences and Discuss Themes of Importance to the Inhabitants
of their Area. in ways that create an institutional memory of women’s
8
This insight emerged from a discussion with Srilatha Batliwala, February 2003.
knowledge and practices within their organizations. The regular sharing of stories and
experiences when women teach one another their strategies keeps the ideas and
experiences alive and also enables each of the ideas to get refined as they get tested
and adapted by groups in their own environments.
Building Collective Knowledge

In Argentina, CISCSA brought three sets of actors—the family based entrepreneurs, the
Intercommunity River Group and the Council of Neighbourhood Centres together—to discuss
the degradation of the river water and its surroundings. For the first time, these three actors
came together to share their work, experiences and agree on how to work in collaboration
with the municipalities on cleaning up the river. This process has the potential to become
a collective space for reflection.
In Turkey, the women and children’s centres, supported by FSWW, where women meet
regularly are spaces where women bring many of their experiences, analysis and questions.
They use this space to discuss their problems, find solutions and strategize.
In Germany, the Mother Centre housed in the Intergenerational House in the city of Stuttgart
is seen as a space for collective analysis and reflection. A member of the Mother Centre
said, “ this place is more than just day-care. We see it as our public living room. Here we can
meet and talk about things…here we can share work and share problems. We are somehow
bringing the problems out of our individual isolated space and trying to address them
collectively here.”
In India, cluster meetings of Sakhi Women’s Federation members are forums for learning in We need to recognize
which leaders of groups from 10-15 villages meet regularly to share problems and solutions. that participation and
The regular cluster meetings and the local learning exchanges that women undertake have all that it entails is as
meant that women are experts at articulating their experiences and lessons. unfamiliar to decision
makers as to
In Kenya, the ten preparatory meetings with the women’s organizations in the Mathare4 communities.
enabled a discussion, through which community actors could identify their priorities, was
part of mobilising communities. It also created an opportunity for groups to reflect on their
own capacities and realities and collectively develop strategies that would advance
community interests.
3.3 Building Alliances
In order to impact the programmes and policies of state institutions and city government,
women’s collectives have to find ways to build alliances with these institutions.
These alliances are important for two reasons:
1. They make bureaucrats and elected officials accountable to communities/

constituencies. The incentives built into state bureaucracies demand that officials
be primarily concerned with managing macro policies and implementing
directives from “above.” While there may be demands from below, there are

rarely any incentives to respond to these. Even where
national policies have created a favourable environment
for grassroots participation in planning, frequently these
policies are not reflected in operational mechanisms that
enable information flow and dialogue between planners
and local communities. Addressing this problem is one
of the central challenges for those working towards more
decentralised, democratic, gender-sensitive governance.
2. They support and strengthen institutional actors.

Help those in authority to represent the interests of
Grassroots women in Russia building alliances with local communities by helping them understand the realities of
authorities through a grassroots-initiated meeting. communities and providing them with accurate
information.
Focus on Institutional Actors in Uganda
By looking specifically to institutional actors women in Uganda were able to secure gender-
neutral language and a focus on women in the constitution.
In Uganda, FOWODE has worked with the women’s caucus to support newly elected
women candidates. FOWODE grew out of the Women’s Caucus of the Uganda Constituent
Assembly, 1994-1995. To increase their political clout and broaden the base of support for
women’s issues, women in the Constituent Assembly embarked on a series of strategic
alliances, building coalitions to influence the new constitution. Caucus members participated
in training on managing campaigns, constituency and coalition building, speech making
and parliamentary procedures. The Caucus formed working relationships with other
professional associations and NGOs with ties to women. The success of the Caucus can
be measured: the constitution of Uganda is written in gender-neutral language, and an
explicit statement of equality before the law is included, which must be written into the laws
to be passed by the new parliament. The new Constitution explicitly prohibits laws, cultures,
traditions or customs that undermine the dignity and well-being of women, and provides for
affirmative action for women, to redress historic imbalances.
Joint planning and collaboration with local authorities

One way for women’s collectives to ensure that policies and programmes reflect their
interests is to be involved in joint planning processes with authorities. If the government
is ready for such a collaboration, it usually this means that there is a supportive political
environment in which at least some state actors see the value of enabling women to
have a strong voice in how programmes are planned, designed and implemented.
When authorities convene the joint planning groups it formally recognises women’s
contributions.
Working with Authorities

In Breznice, in order to plan for their playground the Czech Mothers, Pampeliska were on
a joint working group with their local authorities. There were two mothers, two councillors
and an architect. This meant that the Czech Mothers were given the formal status of a
partner of the local authorities in the playground project.
In Stuttgart, as one of the key stakeholders in the city’s project to build an Intergenerational
House, the Mother Centres were part of a three-year, multi-stakeholder joint planning process.
As the only grassroots women’s groups in the partnership, they found that they had to
develop strategies to ensure that their voice was not drowned out by the professionals who
included the architect, city planners, and municipality officials. They decided never to
attend meetings alone. When they took someone along they felt more confident about
voicing their concerns. They also worked with an architect friend who helped them
understand the implications of different design options. This meant that they were really
well prepared at the planning meetings.
Monitoring government services

Monitoring is a kind of collaboration with authorities that simultaneously encompasses a
range of processes that enable communities to demand greater accountability from
service providers. Women have to know what should be happening, how should schools
or clinics be functioning, women have to collect information regularly and report to
authorities about what is happening so that they can develop solutions to existing
problems. The ongoing nature of monitoring services such as health services or schools
means that local authorities and women will be in an ongoing partnership. The process
of monitoring creates a win-win for women’s collectives and authorities. Authorities get
accurate information about how state resources are being used. Women’s collectives
gain a new kind of visibility and authority that changes the way in which they are seen
both by their communities and the government.
Monitoring Schools in India

In India, supported by Swayam Shikshan Prayog in Maharashtra, women’s groups are State support is won
involved in monitoring basic services in their villages. One example of their monitoring not by coercion, but
efforts is their regular school visits. They have been finding that schools are in a state of the demonstration of
disrepair, or that teachers are absent. They find that girl children are dropping out. They use women’s groups’
their observations to keep higher authorities informed, but they don’t simply wait for the abilities to scale up
government to take action. Women’s groups are constantly finding ways to ensure that operations by
mobilizing support and
children stay in school, they find resources to improve the school building and build toilets
managing local
and they work together to ensure that the teachers get to class on time and are actually development projects.
fulfilling their duties.
Alliances with powerful insiders

Sometimes it is useful to have a powerful ally within the
government who supports women’s initiatives. This ally can
help support women by talking to colleagues within her
organization. He or she can get others within the organization
to start a dialogue with women by setting up meetings. He
or she can create new rules in the organization to support
women’s initiatives, provide incentives to those who get
involved in dialogues or get personally involved in
dialogues. Whatever they do will help to draw the institution’s The Mayor (the man in a white shirt to the left) celebrating the
attention to women’s capacities, priorities and initiatives. Success of the Czech Republic Playground Project with
Grassroots Women and their Families

Building Alliances with Powerful Actors
In Nairobi, Kenya several key officials who had responsibilities in the priority areas identified
by the women came to Local to Local Dialogue workshops where they offered their advice
and support in different ways. These included the Assistant Director from the Physical
Planning Dept. of the Ministry of Lands and Settlement, two councillors and the head of the
AIDS Control Unit in the Ministry of Local Government. Their presence and their advice at
the workshop means that women’s groups can develop their own plans based on these
ideas and go back to government authorities for information, policy support or resources.
In Dar, Tanzania MHG tried to get the support of the Municipal Director of the Temeke
Municipality to help them reclaim their land.
In Breznice, the Czech Mothers were able to get the Mayor to support their campaign for a
playground.
Sites for Dialogues

The location of the dialogue is important and should be used strategically.
• Invite Officials to Visit Communities: Inviting decision-makers to settlements
or villages for a meeting is a good way to get officials to see for themselves the
realities of women’s lives and what women have accomplished. Often officials
who spend most of their time in offices will be moved, energised and enthused
when they come face to face with women’s solutions to problems. The fact that
officials are the guests of communities means that the agenda and the setting
of the visit will be in the hands of women’s collectives rather than officials. The
official visit also helps the group gain visibility in the eyes of the rest of the
community
• Visit Officials: Interacting with officials in their territory is unquestionably

intimidating for poor women because these spaces are usually male-
dominated environments that are hostile to anyone who is an “outsider” to the
system. For many rural women whose mobility is traditionally restricted, visits
to administrative offices represent an empowering experience in terms of
increased control over their mobility.9 When a group of women begin to visit
officials and ask questions about who is in charge of what and with whom
women should speak to address their problems, then officials can rarely
refuse to speak to them. By visiting officials regularly and talking to them,
women are actually making themselves more “real” to officials and thus, much
harder to dismiss. With regular visits, women are saying to officials that they
are not only accountable to their supervisors but also to the communities that
they work in.
9
Gurumurthy 1998.
Dialoguing with Officials in India
In India, women belonging to the Sakhi Mahila Federations supported by Swayam Shikshan
Prayog (SSP) have an extensive system for dialoguing with officials to build alliances. This
dialogue becomes the first step toward the “demystification” of the state. In a sense, it provides
an basic understanding of how state resources are administered, thus laying the groundwork
for future advocacy effects of women’s collectives. It is important to note that in each venue
women are controlling the site and related factors of the dialogue.
• Block Level Study Tours
Members of the Sakhi Federations of women’s groups along with elected women
from village councils are assisted by SSP to learn about how the government is
organised at the sub-district or block level. Groups of women regularly visit officials.
They introduce themselves to officials and find out their names and responsibilities.
• Village Assemblies
The village assembly is a forum where citizens engage with authorities. In India, the
Gram Sabha or village assembly is where decisions taken by the local governing
body are shared with people and people are expected to raise questions and talk
about issues that are important to them. Women usually stay away from such forums
either because of their household responsibilities or a fear of speaking in such forums.
But, when women are organised and confident of articulating their priorities, these
public meetings are useful for voicing women’s interests. This public interaction in
the presence of the community gives everyone a chance to find out about women’s
initiatives and support them, and also provides opportunity for debate and discussion.
• Sakhi Panchayat
A block level (administrative units that make up a district with each block consisting of
approximately one hundred villages) forum has been designed to create opportunities
for women’s groups and elected women to interface with officials. The forum was
used to provide feedback to officials, communicate problems and put forward demands
of the communities. For officials these forums represent an opportunity to widen their
information base for planning since it draws people from many villages. Accurate
information on user groups would otherwise be delayed and distorted when routed
through “the proper channels.” Such dialogue forums also play a significant role in
consensus building on future programs and policies.
• Information Fairs
One of the forums used by the Sakhi Federation in Latur and Osmanabad districts is
the Information Fair. Hundreds of women attend these fairs to share strategies and
celebrate success stories. Women frequently invite elected officials and administrators
to these forums to honour them, thank them for their support and participate in debates
and dialogue. The large numbers of women present give officials an opportunity to
see the magnitude of women’s efforts.

What makes 3.4 Demonstrating Capacities
authorities listen to
women?
Women have to counter the images of being victims, clients and beneficiaries and
Information, capacity demonstrate to authorities that they are worthy allies. They must show the state they
and scale are three have skills, information and the ability to mobilize communities to make state programs
assets that women’s more effective. These are some of the strongest reasons to include women in decision-
collectives can use to making processes.
leverage change.
Five Tools to Demonstrate Capacities:
1. Demonstrate capacities to manage resources: Authorities are more likely
to hand over control of resources to women’s groups or increase women’s
access to resource if they are convinced that the group knows how to manage
resources.
Women Demonstrating Capacities to Manage Resources

There are several different ways in which women can demonstrate this ability. The following
examples present resource management capacity in terms of infrastructure repair, service
distribution and savings.
In Czech Republic the Czech Mothers in Breznice demonstrated that they were not just
demanding a playground, they were ready to share the responsibilities of making the
playground a reality. They demonstrated their ability to get the entire community including
children to rally around the cause. They also demonstrated that they could raise funds from
the private sector to build the playground. Now they have a track record, which will certainly
impress any partners they want to collaborate with in the future
In Tanzania, the Mpambano Women’s Group members were passing through a small
broken bridge in their neighbourhood. They stopped and looked at the bridge; they decided
that it was dangerous for people who used the bridge at night and also for children. The
group agreed to contribute 1000 shillings each to have the bridge repaired. It took two days
for all the members to collect the money and two more days to renovate it using a building
technician. The local authorities were surprised by the initiative taken by MWG. Soon after,
Kaganda was selected by the city authorities to be the chairperson of the Social Services
Committee in Sinza A Ward. Hearing of her selection Kaganda stated that, “the news has
encouraged us. We do believe that our needs such as water and roads [will] be taken into
consideration now on.” The city authorities saw that the women’s group took the initiative to
handle a problem that affected the entire community. It was this that prompted them to
include the group leader on their Social Services Committee. For the MWG, this means
that they now have an ally in the Committee who will be accountable to the needs of the
women.
In Argentina the Women’s Council proactively created its own plan for a cleaner and
better-maintained Cosquin. This included garbage collection, planting flowers and a public
lighting system for downtown. The Municipality saw such a campaign would benefit tourism
in the city. They did not partner with the Women’s Council but they did provide a small
amount of resources to operationalise this plan. In this way the women’s organization was
able to get the attention and some support from the city.
In India, SSP partners with more than 800 active savings and credit groups in Western
India. When women’s savings and credit group members go to banks for loans, they can
demonstrate that they have saved their own money and have been borrowing and repaying
small loans. They can also demonstrate that they have been accounting for the money and
taking decisions collectively to ensure that members repay regularly.
2. Support women in elected office: Sometimes women in elected office are

not experienced in voicing their interests in public fora, so they need to be
supported by women’s collectives to participate actively and take up women’s
issues in decision-making fora. Supporting them means having discussions
with them, arming them with information and helping them gain the confidence
to speak in public fora.
Supporting Women in Elected Office

While having women in positions of power is important, it is necessary for women’s groups
to support women in office in prioritising women’s issues and asserting themselves in
decision-making processes.
In Uganda, FOWODE is working with elected women helping them not only in their election
campaigns, but also supporting them to take up issues of poor women by providing them
with information and strategies. FOWODE organised a workshop in which women’s groups
identified priority areas that they wanted local authorities to address. These included HIV/
AIDS, adolescent sexual behaviour and violence against women. At the end of the workshop
the women councillors acknowledged the value of working with grassroots women’s groups
in identifying priority issues for the communities. They mentioned that without this discussion
with the women, the councillors would not have been in a position to initiate policy dialogues
about these issues.
In India, 1.3 million women entered local government bodies because of a constitutional
amendment that makes it mandatory that a third of all local governments be women. However,
these women have had little experience in participating in the public sphere. The support of
Sakhi Mahila Federations helps these women to have the community support they need for
both confidence and capacity building.
3. Large-scale operations: The scale of operation always impresses officials.

They need solutions that work for large numbers of people. When women
demonstrate that there are many others like them who have the same
problems, the same skills and agree on the same solutions, then officials are
likely to want to collaborate.
4. Demonstration of pilot projects: Getting authorities to support something
usually means doing a pilot project that demonstrates the skills, capacities and
knowledge that women have. Once you have a living example of what women
can do it is easier to get officials and authorities to support such initiatives.

Pilot Projects at Work in Russia
Beyond the basic impact on the community involved in a pilot project, these projects can
promote the women’s groups involved and help other communities begin dialogues about
similar issues.
In Saratov, Russia, the efforts of the communities in the Zonalnyi neighbourhood to clean
up the neighbourhood and repair and improve infrastructure helped advance the Territorial
Self-Governing Committee’s negotiations with local and national authorities. It also
demonstrated to other cities what organised communities can do to improve their settlements.
5. Global allies raise the stakes for local change: Whenever visitors come to
see and learn from your work it is useful to bring authorities into the discussion.
They can see that others value the work that women have done locally and
sometimes women can use the presence of outsiders to bring up
‘uncomfortable” issues and extract promises.
Bringing Outsiders to Local Dialogues

When international visitors from GROOTS International or the Huairou Commission visit
grassroots women, they often use outsiders’ presence to set up meetings with local
authorities in which grassroots women can advance their negotiations. As a group of
foreigners it is considerably easier for the visitors to get an appointment with district level
officials. The presence of outsiders at the negotiating table signals to local actors that a
global network is watching and learning from this process. This affirms the efforts of
grassroots women and ensures that officials take their interventions seriously.
4. Experiencing Good Governance Internally10
The notion of demonstration goes beyond demonstrating to outsiders. It includes the
idea of women seeing for themselves what is possible for them to accomplish through
their own collective efforts.
Women’s organizations need to create internal systems and strategies that mirror the
democratic values they want to advocate for in governing institutions. Hence, the processes
by which collectives and communities set agendas, take action, build leadership and take
decisions are as important as the ways in which they interact with state institutions.
Capacities to participate meaningfully in decision-making processes include not just

information, knowledge and skills but also simulations: experiences of what good
governance means inside women’s collectives and organizations. It is experiencing
democratic processes of how things can be done differently through collective leadership,
decision making, and transparency that provide women with the confidence, conviction
and credibility to bring about change in other institutions. When people experience how
their values operate in their working and living environments they are then prepared
(both in terms of capacity and conviction) to advocate for “good governance’ in other
arenas and institutions.
Democratic Processes in Action within Savings and Credit Groups

In India, savings and credit groups, which are part of the Sakhi Women’s Federations
supported by Swayam Shikshan Prayog are encouraged to create internal systems that
enable collective decision making, transparency and a high degree of internal accountability
among members of the group. The application of these democratic decision-making
processes enable members to experience what it means practice good governance.
10
This insight came from Srilatha Batliwala.

5. Assessing Dialogue Initiatives
Starting with Dreams and Moving to Realities
As part of an internal self-assessment of the first round of Local to Local Dialogues, the
Huairou Commission encouraged participating organizations to think about what they had
accomplished through the Dialogues. Sometimes it is hard for people to evaluate
themselves and to articulate their vision and the direction they want to go in. It’s important
to create evaluation tools that help women’s groups build their capacities to assess their
own work and create their own vision of success. So the Huairou Commission provided
a set of questions to help women walk through their evaluation of this experience11. The
questions began with a vision of the ideal relationship with the government and then
moved on to an assessment of what was possible in reality in a short time frame. The
questions given to the participating organizations were as follows:
1. What did participants’ ideal relationship with their local authorities look like?
This question was to help women close out their realities and imagine an ideal
situation.
2. How could participants improve their relationship with state actors in

different time frames? (10 years, 5 years, 3 years, I year)
Here women were supposed to envision what changes were possible in the long
term, medium term and then the short term, given the circumstances in which
they have to operate. This means taking into consideration both women’s capacities
as well as political support
3. In comparison to what they felt was possible, what did women actually
accomplish in their Dialogues?
This question was to get women to assess their achievements against he
backdrop of the changes that could have occurred in the six-month period that
the Local to Local Dialogues occurred in.
How do you know if you are advancing grassroots women’s agendas in good
governance?
CISCSA, Argentina suggests a set of questions to help in assessing the dialogue
initiatives:
Questions for Grassroots Women:

• How many community initiatives and collaborations have been carried out
among the organizations and their allies?
• What kinds of links exist between women and local organizations?
11
This methodology was provided by Srilatha Batliwala, Fellow, Hauser Center for Non Profit Management,
Harvard University.
• How many activities has the local organization undertaken to sensitize the
community about citizens’ and women’s rights?
• How many women have participated in the activities mentioned above?
• What proportion of community-based organizations are women?
• How many women are leading the demand for participation in local decision-
making?
• How many petitions and proposals that address women’s priorities have been
formally presented by local civil society or community based organizations to
government authorities?
• What local development activities have the organizations have undertaken?
Questions for Local Authorities:

• How many meetings have taken place involving community-based
organizations and local authorities?
• Have local authorities have attended meetings organised by local
organizations?
• How many agreements have been reached between community-based
organizations and local authorities in response to citizen’s needs and
demands?
• How many women are in local government in positions with decision-making
authority?
• What resources have the municipality assigned for the development of
community led projects?
• What budget has been assigned to women’s priority areas?
• What projects and programs have been developed in response to local
realities?

6. Conclusion
A critical resource for women involved in any kind of negotiation is information. Poor
women’s vulnerability is exacerbated by their lack of
information about state entitlements and how to access
them. Once they know about legal provisions, policies and
programs they can start organising to get these entitlements.
Developing projects in which authorities collaborate with

women’s groups provides a way for both sets of actors –
women’s groups and local authorities to work together over
a period of time and get to know each other’s strengths
and thus negotiate roles that are best suited to them.
The Local to Local Dialogue process is an attempt to shift

both governing authorities and women’s groups out of their
Councilor Kamande Providing Information to Women in Kenya conventional roles. This requires an investment on both
at a Workshop they Organized to Begin the Ongoing Dialogue sides. For poor communities investing in a process whose
Process
outcomes are uncertain represents risks and costs. This is
sometimes manifested in a reluctance to participate in processes whose outcomes will
usually be uncertain in the short term and at best, will be visible only in the long term.
The Local to Local Dialogue Initiative of the Huairou Commission was an effort to seed
an ongoing negotiation process. While groups did gain from the Dialogues, the real
rewards of dialogue processes lie in their ability to build long-term robust relationships
with government authorities, leading to partnerships. This occurs when there is an ongoing
engagement and the scaling up of community driven initiatives on the one hand and on
the ability of the government to provide the space to sustain the engagement, on the
other.
In order to advance the negotiations and learning that the Local to Local Dialogues
began, women’s groups and local authorities need to be supported through resources
and policies to continue their efforts.
KENYA For more information
please contact:
Women Setting Agendas for Dialogue1 GROOTS Kenya
Esther Mwaura-Muiru
National Context PO Box 10320-GPO
Nairobi, Kenya
The Dialogues in Kenya took place during a period of great political transition from one 254-20-2718977 or
government regime to another and as would be expected, the election of a new 254-20- 573186
government in December of 2002 created a political climate of great optimism.
GROOTS Kenya
The Local to Local Dialogue initiative in Kenya was facilitated by GROOTS Kenya. GROOTS
Kenya is a network of Grassroots women’s self-help groups and community based
organizations from across Kenya. Founded after the Fourth UN Conference on Women
held in Beijing, China, in 1995, its objective is to ensure that grassroots women are at
the forefront of development processes in their communities. Today, the network has
over 2,000 member groups from across the country.
Local to Local Dialogues in Kenya

Four villages in the Mathare Valley of Nairobi were selected as the location for the
Dialogues. Mathare is a major slum area located 5 Km east of the city center. The four
villages selected were Kosovo, Bondeni, Kiboro and Mathare 3B. While some villages
are located on government land or trust land others are located on private land. The
residents living in the villages of the Mathare Valley lack any kind of security of tenure.
The threat of eviction is compounded by the fact that landowners speculate in the land
market. The living conditions are poor and communities are densely settled with 1,200
persons per hectare. Most of the households in the four villages involved in the Dialogues
were women headed and living below the poverty line with incomes less than a dollar a
day. The dense population and poverty create a situation in which there is acute
competition for meagre resources. These settlements are highly insecure and have
been the epicentres of violence in the past. Large sections of the Mathare population
depend on criminal or illegal activities for their livelihoods. The high crime rate in Mathare
makes it difficult for community members, particularly women, to engage in effective
development activities.
Building a consensus
Many poor urban communities such as those in Mathare have been burnt by their across community
experiences with government, police, researchers and donors, who failed to deliver groups on what issues
what they promised. Hence the communities are reluctant to participate in projects and they would like to
programmes in partnership with or initiated by outsiders. Nevertheless, GROOTS Kenya address was the first
has invested in building strong relationships with the community that helped in the step.
implementation of the dialogue.
1
This case study draws on the Local to Local Dialogue reports written by Emmy M’mbwanga, Social Planner,
Ministry of Local Government.

The ten preparatory Identifying Community Priorities
meetings in the Before beginning the dialogue with government officials and elected officials, GROOTS
community were part of
mobilizing
Kenya organised more than ten preparatory meetings with the women’s organizations in
communities. It the four villages of Mathare to facilitate a discussion through which community actors
created an opportunity could identify their priorities.
for groups to reflect on
their own capacities It was decided at the ten meetings that the communities would be best served by a
and realities and
collectively develop
series of workshops that would bring community leaders face to face with local authorities,
strategies that would the national government and other NGOs.
advance the interests
of the communities. The participants in the workshop were drawn from ten self-help groups operating in the
area, which were dealing with similar issues (HIV/AIDS, drugs, shelter, economic
empowerment and land tenure).
The First Consensus Workshop: Coming Face to Face with

Authorities
In attendance at the Workshop held on 15 August 2002 were 77
community members from Kosovo, Bondeni, Kiboro and
Mathare 3B, ten partners and two councillors from the Nairobi
City Council. Communities used the dialogue process to identify
distinct priority areas they would like to address in collaboration
with their government.
The Consensus Workshop addressed five key issues raised

Councillor Wanjohi of Huruma Ward acknowledged that by communities, HIV/AIDS, land tenure, drug peddling and
squatters must be seen as legitimate citizens. abuse, poor shelter and environmental conditions, and
economic disparities.
The Consensus For the first time, government representatives came to the community. Mr. George Onyiro,
Workshop brought the Assistant Director from the Physical Planning Department in the Ministry of Lands and
together a set of actors—
from the community, local
Settlement, came to the slum to address security of tenure, an issue that communities
authorities and national had identified as a priority. In particular, he requested that they stop using middlemen for
government—to support land issues and come directly to the Ministry of Land Affairs instead. He added that his
grassroots initiatives and office was accessible to all and that he was ready to work with groups who were well
address community organised and well governed. The Assistant Director’s address was an eye opener to the
priorities. community as expressed by one of the women attending the workshop, “I have lived in this
settlement for the last 60 years and could have done a lot if only I knew the way.”
Councillor Kamande, Councillor Wanjohi of Huruma Ward recalled that the settlements have been in existence
the Area Councillor, for the last 40 years and their residents can no longer be referred to as squatters. He
specifically spoke of emphasised the need to formalise their residences by following the required procedures
his appreciation of the
opportunity to dialogue and considering the fact that land buying companies were involved. In addition to this,
with the people he he stated the necessity of discussing economic interventions suitable for the settlement
represents. and dialoguing with the communities before any demolitions are done. The key to all
these require good leadership and hence good governance, which he stated he was
ready to provide.
Councillor Kamande, the Area Councillor, appreciated the facilitation of the workshop as
he had a chance to dialogue with the people he represents. The issues of drugs, AIDS,
land and economic empowerment were major issues affecting his ward. He promised
to assist his community by: The presence of
• Presenting the sanitation problems to the relevant department in the Local officials at the
Authority. Consensus Workshop
• Working together with the community on handling the drug issues and urging enabled women to get
information, strategize
the communities to cooperate and report the ills in the settlement to him or on how to address
those in authority. problems in the
• Respecting the various roles of the groups in the settlement. settlements and how
to approach the
The dialogue with officials at the workshop opened up new avenues for action and government to support
women’s priorities.
dialogue. For example women became aware that they could seek guidance from
Ministry of Local Government on issues relating to HIV/AIDS and that they need to form
into settlement groups to be able to address their land issues.
Mrs. Grace Masese, head of the AIDS Control Unit (ACU)

in the Ministry of Local Government, explained the role
the government is playing in addressing the AIDS
Pandemic. She said that since the pandemic was
declared a national disaster in 1999, the government
formed the National Aids Control Council (NACC) whose
main objective is to co-ordinate efforts in the prevention
and control of HIV/AIDS in the country.
The current activities being undertaken by the

government and which the Mathare communities can
benefit from include: education on AIDS, VCT Centres
for free testing and counselling and encouraging good Mr. Mshila of GTZ-Small Towns Talking to Participants
living. Since everyone is affected in one way or another,
there is a need to promote preventive measures and support those who are infected. For the first time local
councilors were able to
meet the communities
The community groups also learned that government regulations on Local Authority they represent. Moreover
Transfer Fund (LATF) and the Physical Planning Act 1996 require active citizens participation the councilors recognized
and that they have a right to ask the Local Council to address the priorities of the that this meeting reflected
communities that it represents. a dialogue, which could
lead to collaboration with
citizens.
The groups were able to initiate dialogues that sought to build alliances with other
organizations such as the Small Towns Development Project STDP/GTZ and the National
Agency for the Control of Drug Abuse (NACADA) of which they stand to benefit. This workshop was
unlike the meetings
The sharing of experiences by the different community groups unveiled new innovative that elected officials
ideas such as the pay toilets project by the “Tuelewane Self-Help Group” which addresses usually attend in which
the officials set the
both sanitation problems and increases the incomes of the community. agenda.

Summary of Discussions in the First Workshop
Concerns Expressed by Strategies Discussed at the Workshop

Women's Organizations
The residents will start by reporting such cases to the authorities
DRUGS and other groups dealing with drug issues (NACADA).
How can drug peddling and abuse be Women should play a key role, as they are the ones closest to
controlled when the local leaders and the youth and spend most of the time in the settlement. They will
administrators are unscrupulously work to have continuous education and awareness campaigns, in
colluding with the drug dealers? some cases using the drug addicts and peddlers as educators.
Promotion of constructive activities to keep the youth involved in

the economic development is necessary.
Behavioural change should begin by women and men accepting

HIV/AIDS the fact that all are affected; hence change is necessary from
within.
The anti-retroviral drugs for the control of
AIDS opportunistic infections are There is a need for the government to negotiate for subsidised
expensive for low-income communities costs for anti-retroviral drugs.
to afford.
Actors should work in partnership to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Lack of information and careless
behaviour especially on the side of men Promotion of proper diet, good behaviour and herbal medication
is a major cause of the spread of AIDS. is necessary.
The low economic status of residents is Organising more information and awareness for both men and
pushing the youth to become involved in women should be a priority.
anti-social behaviour.
This is only applicable for private land and not trust /government
LAND, ENVIRONMENT AND SHELTER land.
Can one claim land after staying on it for On the Mathare 4A case, proper intervention by the government
12 years? right from the beginning could have solved a lot of the problems.
In addition, there is the claim that project administration and
Why has the Mathare 4A land case been politicians used the divide and rule approach for purely selfish
volcanic? gains.
What happens to land ownership when Community members can seek legal redress from court or other
divorce occurs, especially for women? organizations like FIDA.
Confusion regarding double/triple Any application for land must generate a ground search report.
allocations of land/title deeds.
There is a need to form community-upgrading groups, which will
Some of the old women have stayed for follow-up with the lands office to establish the tenure position of
even 60 years without any knowledge the land and draw a plan for the future.
that the land doesn't belong to them.
Micro-credit facilities can be promoted.
ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT
Links to the potential market should be established.
What are some of the strategies to
address poverty in the slums? Promoting the marketing of products will be helpful.
There is a need to train communities in viable economic

development activities such as income generating activities.
At the end of the workshop the participants were divided into three working groups The workshop with
based on the issues discussed to develop an action plan for the future. policy makers and
local authorities kick-
started a dialogue
The Second Consensus Workshop: Review and Exploration process. The
On 9-10 September 2003, 88 community members came together with six partners, two problems identified by
city council members, and two UN-HABITAT employees. This workshop was organised women require
to encourage follow-up on the commitments made at the first workshop, a reanalysis of ongoing dialogue and
the issues discussed previously, and an exploration of ideas brought forward in the collaboration with local
authorities and support
implementation of the past year’s work. from national
governments.
To start the dialogue process the Workshop opened with a consideration of the roles of
each person in attendance and other partners. Clarifying or developing new roles is
critical to effective partnerships.
The Workshop participants next heard and responded to reports from the three working The increase in the
groups formed at the first Workshop, Drug Abuse, HIV/AIDS and Land Tenure and Shelter: number of community
1. Drug Abuse Working Group: Coming out of the first Workshop the group members since the
first workshop
was concentrated on creating awareness of drug abuse through drama, songs,
indicates that
traditional dances and sports, organising a TOT and counselling to the youth. community members
The group focus was unfortunately derailed because of a lack of attendance saw the Dialogues as
on the part of most group members, a lack of funding and a lack of training. a credible negotiation
Regardless, the remaining group members were able to carry out parts of process in which they
were ready to invest.
the original mission, including:
• Football provision to encourage sports instead of idleness that often leads
to drug use;
• Basic counselling services to the youth;
• The creation of a drama group to prevent youth inactivity and communicate
positive messages; and
• Car washing for youth income that was unfortunately stopped by the
government because it constituted illegal water use.
One of the realisations of this group was that there was a need for a Mathare
Resource Centre to house community activities.
2. HIV/AIDS Working Group: The HIV/AIDS Working Group centred their work
on awareness and home-based care efforts. They were able to organise young
people, single mothers, poor community members and micro-credit groups.
Particular challenges that the group identified were a lack of outside support
for their work, the lack of a Mathare ambulance, an inadequacy of food to
give patients and a lack of funding for care of the sick and orphans. Women
were successful in working across communities to meet some of their need
for outside support and spread their knowledge through their area.
3. Land Tenure and Shelter Working Group: This group existed prior to the
first Workshop, however, their relationship with the government was
confrontational. Through the dialogue begun at the first Workshop the group
realised the benefits of working with local authorities and other leaders as

allies. They were able to establish a good rapport with government through
visits to the Assistant Director of Physical Planning in the Ministry of Lands
and Settlements on the issue of secure tenure in the Mathare slums. Of course,
the problems of eviction and the lack of basic services have not been solved,
but the dialogue between the Ministry and the community is a critical first-step.
Government authorities and community partners responded to the working group reports
with positive reactions and proposals for action plans. Mr. George Onyiro, the Assistant
Accurate Director from the Physical Planning Department in the Ministry of Lands and Settlement,
documentation is who also attended the first Workshop, stated that it was an obligation of the government
necessary for legal to plan for its citizens and that the community members needed to continue their demand
follow-up actions in for secure tenure. He invited the Mathare community to give the government their accurate
regards to land tenure
and it is also a good
information of on the land that had been illegally taken. He noted that because most
way for communities to communities do not document their history it is difficult to follow-up on community land
demonstrate their claims.
capacity to local
authorities. Mr. Dominic Mutheki of the Nairobi City Council Planning Department reiterated Mr. Onyiro’s
point regarding the importance of documentation. He asked community members to submit
their complaints to the town clerk and also present them to the City Council. City plans for
the rehabilitation of the social hall, construction of a health clinic in Mathare North and
construction of streetlights and eight new public toilets were also presented to the
community by Mr. Mutheki. This was vital information and without the Dialogue the
community would have been unaware of these ventures.
The Divisional Medical Representative of the Nairobi City Council, Dr. Raphael, explained
the recent government decentralization of basic medical services. He also expressed
reservations about the proposal to provide food to HIV/ AIDS patients after they have
Finding out about been tested because he believed the idea would not be sustainable in the long-term.
resources, allocations
and entitlements is a A presenter from the Ministry of Local Government informed the Workshop participants
good way for about the Local Authority Service Delivery Action Plan (LASDAP), an important tool for
communities to put
their plans into action communities across Kenya to plan and implement their own projects. She explained how
and it is often an community members could get more information about LASDAP and encouraged people
outcome of alliances to pursue this programme for their own projects. 687 million dollars have been awarded
with government to community-led poverty eradication programmes across Kenya through the Local
authorities. Authority Service Delivery Action Plan (LASDAP).
Mr. David Mshila, the representative from GTZ, Small Towns Development Project,
explained the concept of creating a land fund from which communities could purchase
their own land.
Three additional issues discussed by the Workshop participants were Water and Waste
Management, Security and Socio-Economic Support:
1. Water and Waste Management: Concerns over the price and quality of
water available in the community were raised. There were no price controls
for water and illegal water connections were ubiquitous. In addition,
garbage permeated the slums of Mathare. Community ideas to address
these problems included water kiosks provided by the city and city
council managed toilets.
2. Security: The community pointed to many reasons for the security and
safety issues in Mathare, including the prevalence of bars, lack of
leadership, the dominance of the rich, poor infrastructure, poverty, idleness
and child abandonment.
3. Livelihoods: Mathare residents are limited in their access to business
financing opportunities and there is little market for some of their products,
such as handicrafts. The size of homes often deters successful
entrepreneurs from expanding their businesses. Overall, the community
recognized the need to be innovative in their pursuits of income.
The Workshop broke into six groups to discuss the issues that had emerged from the Suggestions and
both the working group reports and the Local to Local Dialogues that had followed. Each considerations that
surfaced from the
group was asked to analyse and strategize their problem. group discussions
were based in
Action Plans from the Second Consensus Workshop community realities.
To enable action from the many constructive discussions during the Workshop the
participants organised into two main task forces to address the issues of HIV/ AIDS, Drug
Abuse and Strengthening Economic Empowerment. Each team consisted of 16 community
members and agreed to meet on a specific date within two weeks of the Workshop. Two
other community members formed an interim committee to work on the issues of Land
Tenure and Shelter, Security and Provision of Basic Services. The Workshop participants
realised the necessity of involving the larger community in these three issues, so they
decided to delay the creation of big teams.
Everyone agreed that it was necessary to continue the Local to Local Dialogues and to
work together in eradicating community problems. The Workshop ended with everyone
looking forward to the next Consensus Workshop.

For more information
please contact:
RUSSIA
2
ICIWF Cleaning and Greening Neighbourhoods in Russia
p/b 230, 119019 Moscow
Tel/Fax: (095)366-92-74
iciwf@okb-telecom.net National Context
www.owl.ru/eng/women/ Since 1989, Russia has gone through a series of rapid economic and political changes.
org001/ Many of these changes led to the impoverishment of communities in which women have
had to bear the burden of coping in a hostile economic environment. Women were
pushed out of jobs in the formal economy and were forced either to take on low paid
jobs or to become part of the informal economy. The Government adopted the National
Plan of Action for Advancement of Women, but the lack of financial support from the
government meant that this plan has not been put into effect.
Territorial Self Governing Committees (TSGCs) were created through the municipal
decentralization process in Russia. The TSGCs are citizen’s committees that are expected
to address local issues related to infrastructure and basic services for neighbourhoods.
Resolution 1,000, passed by the government in 1996, states that all matters relating to
building, rebuilding and ground tapping must be agreed to by the TSGCs. These committees
are elected by their communities and recognized by the municipalities, but are not
adequately resourced or given the powers to function effectively.
Information Centre of Independent Women’s Forum (ICIWF)

ICIWF was created in 1994 at the initiative of several women’s organizations as a resource
center in support of women’s issues in transition countries. They found that organizations
and social initiatives interested in addressing women’s problems need information,
organization and educational support. ICIWF provides information exchange and regular
consultations for women’s organizations, gender researchers, grassroots organisers,
women in local communities and self-governance bodies. ICIWF supports the activities
aimed at the empowerment of women and solving of women’s every day problems.
Towards these goals, ICIWF initiated the creation of the Association of the Independent
Women’s Organizations (36 organizations from Russia and 3 countries from CIS). ICIWF
is the co-ordinator of this Association. In the past, this association of women’s organizations
organised a number of different activities, including a network of Information and Educational
Centres that was created in ten cities and women’s networks that were created in five
cities for the implementation of the Habitat Agenda.
ICIWF is interested in supporting women to find solutions to the problems they face in
their daily lives. This network of women’s groups across Russian cities is committed to
identifying ways for communities to improve infrastructure and services available to
communities in collaboration with local institutions and service providers. ICIWF’s efforts
2
This case study draws on the Local to Local Dialogue reports written by Liza Bozhkova, Director, ICIWF.
include collaborations with schools to increase vocational opportunities for adolescents, In Russia, local and
building centres for women and helping women in the TSGCs have a greater voice in national governments,
as well as citizens, are
decision-making. trying to learn how to
practice good
Local to Local Dialogues in Russia governance in the
ICIWF facilitated Local to Local Dialogues in two neighbourhoods, Zonalnyi and Solneichnyi, context of
in the city of Saratov with a population of approximately 900,000. The Dialogues involved decentralization.
the Association of Territorial Self-Governance Committees and various NGOs with a
combined membership of 450,000 and local community members consisting of 50,000
inhabitants.
Zonalnyi’s Neighbourhood Transformation

The TSGC of Zonalnyi has been particularly active in mobilising citizens to improve and
maintain infrastructure in the neighbourhoods. Citizens have been successful in getting
roads built, organising community repair, cleaning spring wells, cleaning roads, planting
trees and gardens and improving many other areas of the settlement. Today, the citizens
of Zonalnyi are involved in addressing the following needs in their settlement:
• Lack of clean drinking water
• Poor street lighting
• Poor sewage systems In a short period of six
• Reopening the clinic and savings banks months the citizens of
• Poor playgrounds and gymnasiums Zonalnyi along with the
children and youth of
• Garbage not being collected from houses the neighborhood
came together, took on
Citizens Setting Precedents: Milestones specific tasks to clean
April 28, 2002 and improve the
The TSGC organised “Voskresnik” (voluntary labour) with 50 residents from eight facilities in their
settlements and were
apartments. Children found discarded wheels, adults helped to dispose of these by able to advance their
burying them, forty seedlings were planted, eleven flower beds were made, children interests through a
helped to bring fertile soil in buckets and spread it under trees and in the flower beds. dialogue with
government officials.
May 10, 2002
A meeting of teenagers and children was held. The slogan of this meeting was “Let us
help each other and ourselves.” The participants of the meeting decided to take
responsibility for the seedlings planted during the voluntary labour and expressed their
interest in participating in the process of improving the common spaces around the
apartment blocks. They also prepared a plan for joint activities with the rest of the community.
May 12, 2002

Children elected their leaders and subsequently set up a Children’s Board.
May 18, 2002

The Children’s Board organised a children’s subbotnik (Saturday spent on community
service). They painted tires and playground equipment.

May 25, 2002
The Children’s Board conducted a meeting devoted to the
organization and celebration of “Russia Day” to be held on 12 June
for the children in the settlement. 10 residents sponsored the holiday.
June 8, 2002
Children and adults together made ten flowerbeds and planted flowers
at their building porches. The children posted advertisements inviting
everyone to come to the festival with their children.
A Children’s Board Member Hanging Signs Asking
Residents to Help Remove Old Sand from a
Playground. June 12, 2002
Children decorated the yards with flags made of bright scraps. In
the evening families—including mothers with babies came to the celebration organised
by the children.
June 13, 2002

The Children’s Board reviewed their work during the Festival. They
decided to clean the playground and use it for dances and games.
The next day, the children filled potholes and adults helped them
use old tires to make football goals. 12 children played their first
football match in the “new” playground.
June 14, 2002

The Children’s Board was renamed the Children-Youth Board.
Children Planting Trees and Bushes in a Playground
Area. June 21, 2002
The adults discussed with the Children-Youth Board plans for preparing a compost pit
for using waste matter to make fertilisers for their green zones, which lacked good soil.
As a community that Other Efforts to Improve the Community

has demonstrated its The initiating group participated in cleaning a spring in the grove. Another group began
ability to organize and improving the yards of two more apartment blocks. Two complexes in the neighbourhood
manage its own have won the town competition for greening the town and improving their settlement.
resources, the
The winners were presented with 12-Kg of lawn grass and 25-meters of hose.
Zonalnyi residents
used the media
effectively to convey Eliciting the Support of Local and National Authorities to Address Community-
their dissatisfaction Identified Priorities
with the action taken May 10-20, 2002
by the government and
Four people took the lead in preparing a letter conveying the problems of the
to pressure their
elected representative neighbourhood to the deputies. They collected signatures of the community and sent
to address their the letter to four addresses: the Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission of Saratov,
problems. the Gubernator of the Saratov Region, the Major of Saratov and the Director of the
Municipal Sanitation Department.
July 17, 2002
Leaders of the same communities met to review
any progress. There was none. In a discussion with
a correspondent from the Povolzhsky Information
Agency and the newspaper Saratovskya Panorama,
they expressed their concerns with the participation
of the authorities in all levels of solving the dwellers’
problems stated in the letter. They told him they
were offended by the indifference of the authorities
and had decided to boycott the elections of the
regional legislature to be held in September. On
17 July, this was published in an article called
“Residents of Zonalnyi and TsDK voted in Community Planning Processes
advance—against everybody.”
August 2, 2002
The second meeting was held to monitor improvements in the settlement. No changes
were observed. People hoped that the approaching elections would force authorities to
address their problems. Their concern appeared in an article in the regional “Reporter”
on August 9.
September 3, 2002
Vladmir Nikolaevich Yuzhakov, Deputy of the State Duma met with the community. Children,
teenagers and youth were also invited to the meeting as concerned citizens who were
interested in solving problems related to childhood education, sport and a healthy mode
of life. “It was the first lively and concrete dialogue in years,” said members of the self-
governing committee. After meeting with the communities, Yuzhakov and sanitation officials
decided to stop working on water supply in spring 2003 and instead focus on improving
sewage systems, which will continue until 2005. The deputy promised to work with the
leaders of the community in future. He encouraged all the citizens to vote.
September 2002
The Saratov Regional Weekly, “Sovfax,” published an article in which Lyuboy Derevyagina
said, “We understood the great power of dialogue and what about the authorities?”
More than 46% of the residents participated in elections. This percentage is higher than
that of the city or the region.
Citizens also want to reduce the cost of new telephone connections. By September
more than 78 phones were installed on better terms than the telephone company
agreements.
Summary of Action in Zonalnyi

• Residents repaired the children’s playgrounds and one of the porches of the
apartment blocks.

• In 16 of 21 settlements, residents have a system
for monitoring cleanliness.
• Lighting of 17 porches was repaired.
• A group of residents collected donations from
the community to clean the water spring.
• The children who participated in the
improvement of the settlement received presents
at the beginning of the school year.
• The story of Zonalnyi and its communities was
broadcast on television.
Series of Dialogue Workshops with Different

The Roundtable brought stakeholders face to face so they could learn Stakeholders
from each other and explore ways in which to collaborate. These different
From July 2001 until this writing, ICIWF has held 10
actors expressed their need to share information, learn through
inter-regional seminars on local policy and women’s
community initiatives and transfer experiences and insights across
communities. agendas in different towns. One of the key
objectives of these seminars has been to initiate
interactions among different stakeholders who have the potential to become partners in
the exercise of local governance.
Since the ICIWF has developed a good relationship with the Ministries (Ministry of Labour
and Social Development, Ministry for Construction (Gosstroy), Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
President Administration), the organization regularly transfers information from the federal
level to the local level and vice versa. It has the ability to create forums in which grassroots
organizations’ concerns can be conveyed to the national level.
One of the key
problems faced by Roundtable in Saratov, October 2002
communities in the A three-day seminar was organised in Saratov in October 2002. It brought together
context of Local to grassroots women’s organizations, local self-governance committees, law enforcement
Local Dialogues was officials and local authorities. Ten female leaders of TSGCs including Zonalnyi and
that communities Solniechnyi were invited to share their experiences on working with authorities to improve
lacked the experience
of problem solving. their neighbourhoods. 200 magazines and articles were distributed. They discussed
Women who were part the activities of these leaders during the last year including problems and how
of these multi- communities had tried to address these. Workshop participants exchanged experiences
stakeholder processes on how they had organised residents around the improvement of the community and
agreed on the need to how they had built alliances between the TSGCs and the schools. Participants were also
test out their ideas
through demonstration involved in a training session on developing communication and teamwork skills. They
projects. They closed the seminar by discussing and adopting a programme of action.
recognized the need to
understand Learning from Local to Local Dialogues
opportunities created ICIWF found that the dialogue process initiated in Solnechnyi was somewhat
through
decentralization and disappointing. In Solnechnyi, the habitual belief that everything depends on municipal
how women could use and federal rule is still quite strong and does not encourage citizens to take on
them. responsibility. Introducing other groups and individuals to this community via seminars
or learning exchanges helps to demonstrate self-help approaches to problem solving.
For example, ICIWF involved ecologist Lyuba Derevyagina, an active member and
president of the Self Governing Committee of Zonalnyi.
Another seminar brought together government departments, social workers and law
enforcement departments to discuss crime prevention and safety of adolescents and
women. As a result, a crisis center may be established in the city to address the problem
of women and adolescent safety.
At present, the administration of some regions is ready to cooperate with women NGOs, The Zonalnyi
take their experience into consideration and involve them in the development of new experience brought to
municipal programmes. The seminars helped women to see that the administration in the multi-stakeholder
learning forum a
some regions is ready to collaborate with civil society groups—they clearly see civil demonstration of how
society as having a role in decision-making, planning and problem solving. One of the citizens can effectively
women from ICIWF remarked, “it is required that public organizations, including women’s mobilize under the
organizations that have already accumulated experience in practical work, should actively leadership of the
participate in the development of local communities and improvement of life standards.” TSGC to take initiative
and use their
resources to maintain
The Local to Local Dialogues thus served as an ideal starting point for community based existing facilities and
organizations to demonstrate how communities can work with local authorities. contribute to their
neighborhoods. In
addition, it
demonstrated how the
community’s success
enabled them to
pressure the
government to
address problems in
the settlement.

For more information
please contact: ARGENTINA
CISCSA
Coordinación
Creating Common Agendas to Protect the
Latinoamericana Environment3
Red Mujer y Hábitat -
HIC
9 de Julio 2482 National Context
X5003CQR Córdoba - The Argentinean Government has adopted a neo-liberal model of development following
Argentina which increasingly basic services are being privatised. The collapse of the economy means
Tel/Fax: that the Government has little money to pay for services, prices are rising and large numbers
54 (351) 489-1313
gem@agora.com.ar of people are unemployed. The middle classes, whose incomes have been acutely
www.redmujer.org.ar affected by the economic crisis, have been active in civil society initiatives for the first
time. There are high levels of corruption in the country, which have increased because
of the economic crisis. Citizens, particularly those from low and middle income groups,
Women recognize the are finding that their interests are not being addressed by the government. There is a
need to experiment very limited role for citizens in decision-making on public policies.
with innovative forms of
engagement with
authorities in order to Centre of Services and Exchange for the Southern Cone, Argentina (CISCSA)
bring about good The Local to Local Dialogues in Argentina were led by CISCSA. The key actors were
governance. As stated communities from Santa Maria de Punilla, Bialet Masse and Cosquin, the three cities
by CISCSA, “the need that share the resources of the Cosquin River. The Local to Local Dialogues were used
and desire to create
new paths for citizen to build capacities of four community-based organizations on the use of the river
participation was resources:
clearly demonstrated • The Inter Community River Commission or the Cosquin River Commission
by citizens throughout comprising citizens from the three cities created the River Plan in the absence
the country during of a clear plan from the Government;
2001 and 2002.”
• Family Community Market, created in 2001 to strengthen the micro-enterprises
of family based artisans in the Valley;
• The Council of Neighbourhood Centres, a
federation of community based organizations; and
• The Women’s Council, created through a
municipal ordinance.
Local to Local Dialogues in Argentina

The Cosquin River and its surroundings are a major
resource for the communities settled in three cities
that share the Cosquin River waters. The pristine river
waters have not only provided a water source for the
settlements but have also drawn tourists from all over
the country. In recent years, the pollution of river water
and the banks of the river have been steadily
The Local to Local Dialogues took place in the city of Cosquin with a worsening because of garbage and sewage disposal
population of approximately 20,000.
3
This case study draws on the Local to Local Dialogue reports written by Georgia Marman, Documenter.
into the river. This impacts the living conditions of citizens as well as the livelihoods of
many who depend on tourism.
The situation in the Punilla Valley where the Local to Local Dialogues were carried out is
marked by a state of recession. There is a crisis at the
Municipal level that has created a lack of municipal funds,
which means that municipal services are often being
neglected. The communities of Santa Maria de Punilla,
Bialet Masse and Cosquin, who live around the Cosquin
River, have thus had to face environmental degradation
as well as the lack of municipal services, both of which
have an adverse affect on their quality of life.
While a process of decentralization has taken place, this

has not been accompanied by adequate devolution of
powers and resources to strengthen local government
or citizen’s participation. The national government has
failed to develop policies that promote devolution of
powers. But side-by-side the Punilla Valley has also seen The Women’s Day Workshop provided the starting point for these
the mobilisation of communities and efforts to take action two groups of women to come together around issues impacting
them and to find ways to collaborate.
to address the problems of the Punilla Valley. The state
however has a restricted understanding of citizen’s participation that is confined to
elections.
A series of workshops and meetings were organised in which groups worked towards This meeting between
understanding and analysing their situation, looking at options for action, building women in Cosquin’s
Municipal Women’s
consensus within and across organizations and planning actions for the future. Council and women
from the Council of
Mobilising the Community to Take Action on Cosquin River Neighbourhood Centers
The series of workshops and supplementary activities detailed below improved the also represents an
visibility of the work of the organizations in the communities who participated in the inside-outside alliance
in which women from
dialogues. communities can begin
collaboration with
Milestones women who are part of
March 2002 local authorities.
The Municipal Women’s Council of Cosquin organised a Women’s Day Workshop in
which 80 women who were part of the Council of Neighbourhood Centres discussed the
role of women in decision-making.
CISCSA began work on a communication strategy that focused on the role of the Council
of Neighbourhood Centres (CNCs) to communities.

Collaboration between The Family Community Market organised the Workshop on Women and Micro-enterprise
the two represents a win- to discuss how to link families, collective enterprise and women’s role in families and
win situation because communities.
women from the
Neighborhood Centers
will have their concerns
May 2002
taken up in the A Communications Planning Workshop was held for generating awareness on
Municipality while the environmental problems and the River Directive Plan.
women in the Municipal
Women’s Council gain June 2002
by creating a good
support base or
Various Cosquin organizations exchanged dialogue on health, employment, poverty,
constituency. women’s concerns, environment and planning for sustainable use of resources leading
to an articulation of local initiatives.
The River Intercommunity Group organised a marathon to raise awareness about the
river resources. 130 people participated from the three cities.
July 2002
The River Intercommunity Group presented the River
Plan and Sustainable Local Development Plan at a
meeting with primary and secondary school teachers.
The Women’s Council of Cosquin developed a plan for

cleaning the city. In collaboration with the municipality,
they organised for garbage collection, flower planting
and street lighting in the downtown area.
The Family Community Market held a second meeting

with entrepreneurs at the National Plaza for Folklore, a
facility lent to them by the Municipal Folklore Commission
The Second Entrepreneur Meeting in order help increase the visibility of Cosquin’s family
based entrepreneurs.
The workshop series
represents a process August 2002
of mobilizing CISCSA organised a workshop on marketing with a focus on how to reduce the burden of
communities affected women.
by the pollution of the
natural resource base.
The workshops are September 2002
also a space in which There was an evaluation with all participating organizations to allow space for sharing
communities can successes and obstacles, a discussion of the direction of their future together. In particular,
collectively analyze problems in communicating with local authorities were identified.
and articulate their
problems and
collectively develop The First Regional Public Conference towards Sustainable Development was held in
solutions to these Punilla Valley. The Cosquin River Intercommunity Group initiated this in order to share
problems.
experiences in the region on water management, waste disposal, contamination,
sustainable tourism, sexual and reproductive health and shared economic problems.
November 2002
The Regional Meeting of Municipal Women’s Council was held.
The Communication Strategy

Participants recognized the need to have a communications strategy to keep citizens Local and National
informed of the major challenges as well as the actions taken by the River Intercommunity Authorities who have no
Group, the Council of Neighbourhood Centres and the Family Community Market to experience
address these. collaborating with
citizen’s groups are
always wary of investing
CISCSA’s team invested in this communication strategy. In order to function effectively in collaborations. In the
CNC required good understanding of community issues. In short, this was a way to beginning,the
articulate the problem clearly, both in terms of expressing the issues and connecting investments authorities
different actors. The Communication Strategy had three objectives: make are usually small.
It is only when citizen’s
1. To enhance community awareness on the environment and the need to use groups demonstrate
natural resources in a sustainable manner; their expertise that
2. To stimulate citizen’s participation on solutions to environmental, economic authorities are ready to
and infrastructure problems; and increase their stakes in
3. To serve as a foundation for involving women living in Cosquin in municipal a partnership.
decision-making and the work of local organizations that are working on their
behalf.
In July, The Women’s Council proactively created its own plan for a cleaner and better-
maintained Cosquin. Their campaign included addressing garbage collection, planting
flowers, and a public lighting system for downtown. This plan was finally implemented
when the municipality co-operated by offering labour in the campaign. The Municipality
saw that such a campaign would benefit tourism in the city. However, the municipal
involvement has remained at the level of providing a small amount of resources. There Given the diversity of
has been no attempt by the municipality to partner with citizens on this. The communities’ interests among the
actions thus drew the attention of local authorities, demonstrating to authorities the fact various groups with a
that communities are worthy collaborators. stake in development
and the interplay
between interests and
Recognition in global and national forums often gets the attention of local authorities. power building,
Having worked for several months without any signs of recognition or co-operation from internal agreements
the municipality, Claudia Peirano on her return from the International Conference on Women for action to address
in Local Government and Decision-Making received a letter from the Deliberating Council common needs is the
of the Municipality of Cosquin congratulating her for her participation in this. first step towards
strengthening
capacities for effective
The initiatives sought to bring other key constituents to support efforts around sustainable participation.
use of resources, such as teachers, and sensitize local organizations on the role and
leadership of women. Organizations began to see the need to collaborate. They began

Insights from the creating a consensus on how to proceed with the internal strengthening of the organization
collaboration across and strategies through their efforts to communicate, organise and plan together. Women
community-based emerged as a core of active leaders across the collaborating organizations.
organizations include
the need for a new
kind of leadership and Alliances among women in different organizations created a support network, which
new ways of engaging can collectively strategize to address women’s concerns. What emerged from this
with government to series of events was recognition of the need to work together to create stronger links
advance women’s among the local authorities, communities and women’s organization. The Municipality
economic and social and government need to see women’s participation in decision-making and planning as
interests.
part of the definition of women’s political participation. In other words, expanding their
definition of political participation to include women’s participation in decision-making
and planning.
While it has been difficult to negotiate or collaborate with local authorities because the
local authorities resisted all efforts to be drawn into a dialogue with civil society, the
Communication Strategy and other advocacy efforts of the community-based
organizations have resulted in innovative partnerships across civil society organizations.
TANZANIA For more information
please contact:
Face to Face with Procedures and Policies4 WAT
Ufipa Street, Kinondoni
P.O. Box 5914
National Context Dar es Salaam
Tanzania is one of the African countries in which government has been making a conscious Tanzania
effort to establish democratic institutions and strengthen women’s status. While much still Tel: 255 22 2667091/
Fax: 255 22 2775363 /
remains to be done, especially in linking existing national gender-sensitive and equitable wat@ud.co.tz
legislation to local political decision-making and action, some milestones have been www.wat.kabissa.org
achieved and women are gaining ground in a number of critical areas including legislation
relating to education, marriage and family status as well as private property. Tanzania had
a centrally planned economy that is currently undergoing decentralisation. Local
communities, however, are uninformed about local government, legal and administrative Women’s capacities to
policies and procedures. dialogue with local
authorities were
upgraded by WAT.
Over the past five years, women of Tanzania have been organising for improved rights
to land. As a result new legislation was enacted in 1999 and the opportunity now exists
for strengthening women’s access and ownership rights in urban and rural land. In the
urban areas, however, the situation of low-income women is still precarious. This is
perhaps not so much due to a lack of appropriate legislation but rather because so
many women living in economic poverty also suffer from a desperate lack of information Through Local to Local
which could inform and consolidate political action. Dialogues women’s
groups:
1. Learned about the
Women Advancement Trust (WAT) advantages of acquiring
In the capital city of Dar es Salaam, the Local to Local Dialogues were facilitated by WAT, legal status for
in collaboration with two urban grassroots groups at the level of the Ward (the smallest community-based
urban administrative unit in the municipality). The role of WAT has been to facilitate the organizations and
procedures for going
groups by opening up political space for them by brokering meetings with local ward about it;
and municipal leaders and other key decision makers. WAT also works to provide 2. Acquired information
women links to sources of legal literacy on women’s land and housing opportunities. on regulations
governing the operation
of local savings and
Urban Grassroots Groups credit organizations;
The grassroots groups who participated in the Local to Local Dialogues are the and
Mshikamano Housing Group (MHG) and the Mpambano Women’s Group (MWG). Both 3. Explored working with
MHG and MWG used their interactions with local authorities to develop action plans. local authorities.
4
This case study draws on the Local to Local Dialogue reports written by Lucy Tesha Merere, Project Documenter.

The Mshikamano Housing Group (MHG)
MHG was established in 1996 with ten members of whom
seven were women. The group was established with the
aim of acquiring affordable shelter on a self-help basis.
Currently, MHG comprises 15 members of whom 11 are
women. The group is located in Mtoni kwa Azizi Ali in
Mtoni Ward, Temeke Municipality in Dar es Salaam. They
acquired un-surveyed land (i.e., untitled land of
undetermined acreage) in accordance with government
procedures for the purpose of building residential houses.
After the group had the land surveyed, local squatters
Group Members invaded the land and took it over so that the women could
not develop the plots and proceed with constructing their
The efforts of the houses. The women were able to avert a major confrontation with encroachers by going
Mshikamano Housing to local authorities.
Group and the
Mpambano Women’s
Group in Kampala,
Local to Local Dialogues with MHG in Tanzania
Tanzania provide insights Over a period of four months, the MHG made several visits to the local authorities and
into ways in which invested in building their own understanding of legislation regarding land tenure in order
grassroots women’s to gain the support of the authorities in reclaiming their land. In addition, they began to
groups can invest in a learn how to interact with the government.
range of strategies to
gain the support of the
state. Women have to Milestones in the MHG Dialogue Process
invest in accessing May 2002
information, The WAT Chairperson together with two other members approached the Mtoni Ward
understanding leader, and their local councillor to inform them about their group and invite them for an
legislation,
understanding
introductory meeting with the group. The local councillors accepted the invitation and at
government structures the meeting they were informed about the group’s problems regarding land. The local
and approaching the councillor explained the procedure for filing a complaint to the Temeke Municipal Council.
relevant authorities. He advised the group to write a letter to the Temeke Municipal Director requesting an
appointment. The local authority advised them to send the letter to the Municipal Director,
with copies to the Mayor of Temeke, Mtoni Ward Councillor and the officer who is in
WAT helped to create charge of Department of Urban Planning and Statistics who normally deals with Land,
conditions for dialogue
Urban Planning and Community Development. The letter was prepared and sent.
by introducing the group
to the local authorities
such as ward leaders, The group then had a session with two women lawyers who are both members of the
local councillors, the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association, who shared information on the legal status
Community Development regarding dispute settlements in accordance with Land Acts of 1999.
Officer and the Municipal
Director in order that the
women’s group could June 2002
begin to dialogue with Three members of MHG, including the Chairperson of the group, followed-up the reply
the local authorities of from the Temeke Municipal Director regarding their request to meet with him and members
Temeke district to of the Town Planning Committee.
reclaim their land.
MHG found out that the Municipal Director appointed a technical team to scrutinise the The women learned
source of the problem for the group and requested the team to submit recommendations how to best operate
within the system of
to him for possible solutions. governance by working
directly with local
For six weeks the MHG members did regular follow-up with the municipal authorities authorities.
and the technical team to find out if any progress had been made. The response was
that the technical team was still investigating the issue.
July 2002
Local authorities and
The group followed-up again on 4 July 2002 to get a decision, but the group was told to
technical experts often
come back on 10 July 2002. On 10 July 2002, the group was at the Land Department control all of the
office in Temeke Municipal Council early in the morning for the appointment. However, information, leaving
the answer was the same: the technical team was still working on their problem. The one communities in the
official from land department promised them that by 25th July 2002 they would have the dark.
report ready regarding their problem.
Finally, the technical team submitted their recommendation late July and had internal There was an attempt
to present the problem
session with the Municipal Director where their local councillor attended the session. to the Municipal
Director in order to
2 August, 2002 gain the support of a
The Land Officer told them that the technical team together with Temeke Municipal Director senior member of the
has agreed that the Municipal Council should bear the cost of re-surveying their plot, local authority. In this
way the women were
which was encroached upon by the local community. The Municipal Director told them working to seize
that the work should start immediately. The group was told to report back to the Municipal opportunities to ally
Office on the 15 August 2002 to hear other directives, but on the return date they did not with powerful actors.
find anybody at the office.
19 August 2002
The Mshikamano Housing group has been following-up on the government permit for Grassroots women
valuation of the invaded plot from the Land Department of the Temeke Municipal Council. find it easier to make
their voices heard in a
dialogue when they
The Chairperson of the group visited the Land department on 5 September 2002. She are not alone.
went with two other representatives of the group who volunteered to make follow-up of
valuation process. The municipal officials said that there was a need to develop a strategy
on how to convince the local leaders from Buza, the invaded area, to meet with its local
people who invaded the plot.
27 September 2003
When the group representatives visited the Executive Secretary of Buza they were
informed that there would be further delays in the re-evaluation because the funds from
the Municipality had not been authorised.

In order to build lasting 3 October 2002
relationships with The group phoned the Executive Secretary of the area, Buza, and reminded him of his
authorities women’s agreed assignment. He requested the group to give him one more week so that he
groups have to be
patient and could have a discussion with the encroachers and plan a meeting between the
persevering. Women’s encroachers and the Mshikamano leaders. Even after the seven-day period, the
groups will often find Executive Secretary of Buza failed to fulfil his promise.
that they have to visit
officials many times 11 October 2002
before they are able to
get a response. Disappointed, three representatives of Mshikamano decided to go back to the head of
Sometimes delays Land department in Temeke Municipal Council to update him and they were told that he
mean that authorities would look into the issue.
are not sure how to
solve the problem. 28 October, 2002
This could be an
opportunity for women The group visited the executive Secretary of Buza to see if there was any progress and
to present solutions. he said he was busy with other government directives from Temeke Municipal Council
and promised that he would work on it in the second week of November 2002 with the
staff who assisted in some of the provisions/clauses of their by-laws.
The Mpambano Women’s Group (MWG)

MWG was informally established in 1999 by grassroots women as part of the wider
women’s efforts in eradicating poverty at family level. The group is situated at Sinza ‘A’
Ward, Kijitonyama suburb, in Kinondoni Municipal Council, in Dar es Salaam. The group
was established by 25 women members with the aim
of empowering women to eradicate poverty at the
community level. Most of these women belong to
low-income communities and earn money by selling
street foods or poultry. One of the group’s objectives
is to assist women in increasing their incomes. The
MWG has set up tontines or revolving credit funds to
assist women financially during burials, weddings and
traditional festivals.
Local to Local Dialogues with MWG in Tanzania

MWG used the Local to Local Dialogue process to
undertake research and prepare the documents
required for acquiring legal status for their group. The
Local Authorities Responding to Community Priorities group is currently negotiating with their local authorities
and lawyers to ensure that their organization is
properly registered under Tanzanian laws. It is also necessary to have legal status to
qualify for loans under the Women Special Fund (which is managed by the local authority)
and from other financial institutions that are funding community groups through loans and
grants.
Milestones in the MWG Dialogue Process The city authorities
August 2002 saw that the women’s
group had taken the
One day in the middle of August, the Mpambano Women’s Group leader, Mwamini
initiative to handle a
Kaganda with five other group members, were passing through a small broken bridge in problem that affected
their neighbourhood. They stopped and looked at the bridge and decided that it was the entire community.
dangerous for people who used the bridge at night. It was also dangerous for children. It was this that
The group agreed to contribute 1,000 shillings each to have the bridge repaired It took prompted the
authorities to include
two days for all the members to collect the money and two more days to renovate it
the group leader on
using a building technician. The local authorities were surprised by the initiative taken by their social services
MWG. committee. For the
MWG, this means that
Soon after, the group chairperson, Mwamini Kaganda, was selected by the city authorities they now have an ally
in the Social Services
to be the chairperson of the Social Services Committee in Sinza A Ward. “The news has
Committee of Sinza A
encouraged us. We do believe that our social service needs such as water and roads Ward who will be
would be taken into consideration now on,” said an MWG group member. accountable to the
needs of the women.
All documents required for the registration of the group were presented to the Municipality.
The group requested WAT to assist the group in its efforts to be registered with local
authorities. The group was also eager to learn how the local groups are being involved
in the socio-economic development such as micro-credit activities at the local level.
.
The group decided to organise a capacity building session with the facilitation of the Women’s groups are
Ward Leader, District Community Development Officer and Co-operative Officers. About often at a
disadvantage in their
30 members from Mapambano Women Group confirmed their participation in the planned negotiations because
session. they don’t have all their
paperwork in place.
September 2002 But with a little bit of
MWG continued with its efforts to communicate with offices of the local government, help from professional
partners and allies this
ward, division and district with regard to registration procedures. The draft constitution of is a barrier that can be
the group was returned twice by the Kinondoni District Offices due to a lack of correct easily overcome
information or failure to follow the right channel or procedures for submitting the group’s
application letter.
On the issue of opening a Bank Account, the Kinondoni District Community Development In an effort to upgrade
women’s capacities, a
Officer informed the secretary that the application for the account should be channelled session was organized
through the local government secretary in their area and then sent to him. The MWG with lawyers in order to
Secretary was still working on it. enable women in the
group to understand
The group was informed that the Minister for Community Development, Women and the procedures for
land acquisition,
Children Affairs would visit the women groups in Sinza A Ward; the group had been transfer and
among the first communities to be visited by the Minister. However, the visit was compensation as far
postponed till further notice. The group was disappointed by the cancellation of the visit as land regulations
at the last minute as they left all their family activities, mainly petty business (local food and laws are
vending) when preparing to host the Minister. concerned.

For women to utilize What have the women’s groups accomplished so far?
existing legal Mpambano Women’s Group
provisions that are The group is working with the local Community Development Officer and learning how to
already in existence at prepare its by-laws. The group has contacted its ward leader to register the objectives
the local level, they
have to work very hard
and goals of the organization.
in building their
capacity in terms of Through the local-to-local dialogue methodology the group has acquired the information
information and necessary for it to develop a structure, by-laws and capacity to seek information needed
partnerships that can by the group.
help them to move
through the enormous
bureaucratic labyrinth. This is no mean achievement for poor women who are usually excluded from critical
information, access to decision makers and partnerships they need to solve simple
everyday problems they face.
Mshikamano Housing Group

The Local to Local Dialogues created political space
by linking the women’s group to relevant political and
administrative officials with knowledge and authority to
solve their land and housing problem; it also provided
the women leaders with the relevant legal literacy and
tools they needed to ask the key questions and pursue
the matter legally. It is reported that the women are
already feeling empowered and are working hard to
pursue this matter.
While the process for both groups is not yet complete

Women Celebrating in terms of achieving the objective, the group has begun
to understand that it takes research, information and
networking to achieve the simple goal of being formally recognized by the state in order
to access state resources.
CZECH REPUBLIC For more information
please contact:
A Playground for Breznice Bøeznice Network of
Mothers Centers in CR
Široká 15
National Context 110 00 Praha 1
The “velvet revolution” in 1989 enabled the development of the democratic establishment Czech Republic
in the Czech Republic and created opportunities for the rapid growth of civil society. Tel.: 04222316407
2002 was the year of parliamentary and local elections. These elections were often krut@volny.cz
lucie@slauka.cz
given more attention by politicians than solving specific local problems. On the other
hand, forcing politicians to make election promises was partly successful as a result of
the campaigns.
Unfortunately, support of families does not fit with political priorities and the family is not
a focal point of support for society either. With the year 2004 being established as the
national “Family Year” hopefully more attention will be paid to families.
Mothers Centres
The Local to Local Dialogues in the Czech Republic were facilitated by the Network of
Mother Centres in the Czech Republic, which passed the idea to member Mothers
Centres. In the 1990s, mothers with small children were among the first to begin organising
around their needs. This led to the rapid development of Czech Mothers Centres, which
originated in Germany. Today, there are more than one hundred Mothers Centres across
the Czech Republic. Since 2001, the umbrella organization, the Network of MC in CR,
covers the interests of individual Mother Centres.
Mothers Centres are women’s organizations that bring together women who are interested
in working on issues of families, children and access to public spaces. The Mothers
Center in Breznice (as well as majority of other Mothers Centres) is mainly made up of
women on maternity leave organising programmes for mothers and children. They have
organised programmes to raise awareness on maternal and child health, as well as
activities such as language courses, art, and drama. Also available is the daily open
playroom created by the mothers. While local authorities
have been slow to recognise the contribution of
Mothers Centres, in May of 2003, Rut Kolinska, founding
member of the Czech Republic Mothers Centres and a
member of the International Mother Center Network
(MINE), was named the “International Women of Europe”
for her work, thereby giving greater political visibility to
the Czech Mother Centres.
Local to Local Dialogues in the Czech Republic

Local to Local Dialogues started in three different Prague
representative Mothers Centres—one in the capital, one
in a big town and one in a small town in country area.
The Network of Mothers Centres in the Czech Republic Breznice, the home of the Czech Republic Local to Local Dialogues.

chose Breznice, a small town of 3,500 people, to demonstrate the dialogue process.
The Mothers Centres already saw building alliances with local authorities as a vital part
of their effort to create policies that support families and the women were happy to
become involved in the Local to Local Dialogues. Together with the community at the
Local to Local Dialogue planning meeting, the women found that “there is nothing for
children” so the Mothers Center of Pampeliska, Breznice decided to find ways to
collaborate with their local authorities to build a playground for the children of Breznice.
Milestones in the Dialogue Process

February 2002
After the meeting of Local to Local Co-ordinators in
Prague, the Breznice Mothers Working Group was
formed. It consisted of 5 members of the Mothers
Center.
April 2002
The Breznice Mothers held their first meetings with the
mayor and the town representatives, to present their
proposals for building a safe modern children’s
playground with the support of the local authorities and
Mothers and children during one of the morning programmes. mapping of suitable places for children playground. A
Joint Working Group was established in order to lead
this negotiation and decision-making process. The Joint Working Group consisted of 2
councillors, 2 mothers and an architect.
May 2002
The Working Group team presented their project to the public with the help of the media.
It was called “Playground for Breznice.” In partnership with the media the Mother Center
also organised an art and literary competition for children to draw the attention of both
political leaders and communities. The art and literary
competitions were called “ My Dream Playground” and
“ “What I would like to have in Breznice.” 120 works by
children of all ages were collected, and displayed in a
gala afternoon that concluded with the Mayor giving a
speech supporting the project.
Mothers and local authorities working together in the context of the

Joint Working Group.
Children’s suggestions from the art and literary competition for playground structures. The last drawing is a child’s idea for separated waste
disposal.
June 2002
By June, the Mothers Center opened the registered money collection for playground
items, established a bank account number and put up donation boxes in shops.
September 2002
By September, over 5,000 Czech Crowns were already collected. In the same month
the Working Group used ideas, which were expressed by children in their art and writing,
to make an architectural drawing of the playground. They also secured financial support
of 50,000 Czech Crowns from local authorities to start working on the new playground.
October 2002
In October 2002, the working group organised a benefit
sports event: Castle Park March in co-operation with the
Mother Center Pampeliska, the local sports club called
Falcon and 140 participants. All proceeds from this event
were matched by Wilde Ganzen Foundation and used
for playground expenses. About 8,000 Czech crowns
were collected from the benefit.
November 2002
Sublima Invest, a local timber and woodcraft factory,
made an offer to prepare certain wooden items for the
project under a contract signed by the Town Council. Castle Park March participants raising money
for playground expenses.
The Mothers Center received a grant of 50,000 Czech
Crowns from the VIA Foundation for the restoring of an old park located near the Mothers
Center and the Senior Home. This project includes a children’s playground, recreation
areas for seniors and plenty of space for multi-generational meetings. The project
continues to count on close collaboration with local authorities.

The local elections in November 2002 brought a new
set of elected leaders and a new mayor to power.
Sensing the need to establish their position as allies of
the newly elected officials, the Mother Centres Working
Group started a dialogue with the newly elected local
authorities, fourteen days after the election. And while
all parties declaimed support for local clubs and
associations, 2 out of 6 parties taking part in the local
elections in Breznice named Mothers Center
Pampeliska in their programmes as a local association
they were willing to support.
The playground construction begins through volunteer work! To Date

The realisation of the project brought many complications
and surprises caused by the changes in elected officials which disrupted the negotiation
process. A new architect was appointed with whom the women did not have experience
negotiating. As a result, their ability to participate in the
design of the new playground was limited. However,
70,000 Czech Crowns from local authorities did further
support the project; a charity concert was held under
the name of the town mayor and another benefit event
supported by Wilde Ganzen Foundation was organised.
From this funding several unique play structures were
created from natural products. In 2004, the mothers want
to continue the local dialogues about expanding the
project and about other projects.
Key Strategies
The Breznice Mother Centres identified four ways in
Between November and December 2002, the first steps in the actual
which they gained from using the Local to Local
construction of the children’s playground were initiated. Dialogue strategy:
1. Gaining Visibility: In a short time, Mothers
Center Pampeliska in Breznice has become a well known association not
only among young families but also among the general public. It has become
a partner for local authorities in decision-making in regards to the process of
building the children’s playground. In many ways, that specific project has
wider connections and importance, including continued co-operation with the
Senior House and revitalisation of a public park.
2. Capacity Building: Local to Local Dialogue enabled the mothers involved to
enhance their negotiation skills, solve various problems and learn about
local politics. Almost daily documentation helped in dealing with local
authorities as well as in writing grant requests for assistance from various
local foundations. The women learned to negotiate for resources from the
City, the private sector and the non-benefit sector.
3. Mobilising the Support of the Community: The women actually saw their
aspirations of a playground being realised through their negotiations and
efforts to raise resources. The playground is under construction. “We can be
proud,” they conclude, “of the number of people who took part through the
process from the first search for a suitable place, planning, results of art and
literary competition, to practical realisation with a lot of volunteer work. The
number of people supporting the project through charity events or money Any alliance with local
authorities creates
collection is also satisfying.”
high visibility for
4. Expanding the Space for Participation: The project that began as a children’s women’s
playground, will be expanded to be part of a wider park revitalisation project. organizations. It
The Mother Center Pampeliska in Breznice will use its new visibility and demonstrates to other
position to initiate action to solve other common problems mainly concerning citizens and
institutions the value
children. Future projects being considered include safe roads for children to
of collaborating with
go to school, reconstruction of a public swimming pool and a new ecological women’s
programme. organizations.

For more information UGANDA
please contact:
FOWODE Supporting Local Authorities to Address Women’s
Plot 80A Kira Road
P.O. Box 7176, Priorities
Kampala
Uganda National Context
Tel: 256-41-540241/2
Fax: 256-41-540243 Since 1973, the Government of Uganda has been working to rebuild its democracy. A
fowode@utlonline.co.ug critical element in the efforts of the state have been directed at creating democratic
www.fowode.org institutions that would encourage the participation of citizens in the policies and
programmes of the Government. Uganda’s decentralization policy was operationalised
by the Local Government Act, 1997. This is intended to make local governments effective
centres of local self-government, citizen’s participation, local decision-making and
The ideal relationship development. Local governments in the city of Kampala are the city council at the district
between grassroots
women and the state level and the city division council at the sub-national level.
would be one in which
there is a continuous Forum for Women in Democracy (FOWODE)
dialogue between local In Uganda, the Local to Local Dialogues were facilitated by FOWODE. Their activities
governments and are focused on research, training and influencing policy and legislation from a gender
grassroots women’s
organizations to ensure perspective. Public dialogues, issue briefs and workshops are used to share information,
bottom-up demand build consensus and advocate for gender equity. FOWODE has been involved in lobbying
driven planning for the Land and Local Government Acts. They were also involved in lobbying for
processes that respond affirmative action and other gender sensitive constitutional provisions.
to the needs of women
and their communities.
FOWODE has worked with female legislators and their allies in parliament and in 25
FOWODE states that districts in Uganda since 1995. Its activities have ranged from preparing them for elections
this requires to providing them with skills for effectiveness in their legislatures and delivering constituency
“grassroots women services. Furthermore, FOWODE has also supported elected officials to undertake gender
with the capacity to analysis of policies and programmes, including understanding budgets from a gender
actively engage and
inform their local perspective so as to enable them to advocate for equitable distribution of resources
authorities of their between women and men, girls and boys and other marginalized groups.
concerns during the
budgeting and Local to Local Dialogues in Uganda
planning processes of The Local to Local Dialogues were carried out in Kawempe Division of Kampala, the
local governments.”
capital of Uganda. Kawempe division, situated in the north of Kampala City, has 22 parishes
including the one where Makerere University (the highest center of learning in the country)
is located. In addition, it is in this division that the main referral hospital of Uganda, Mulago
Hospital, is located. The land use pattern in Kawempe Division varies, with a mixture of
high, medium and low-density residential areas, small to medium scale commercial
areas, small-scale to medium scale industrial areas, institutional land use and small-
scale agricultural activities. Kawempe Division is one of the units of local government in
Uganda. It has 46 elected members or councillors and of these 20 are women. The
political head of the Division is the Chairperson.
Initial meetings were held between FOWODE staff and the Chairperson of the Kawempe The same elected
Division. This was in order to introduce the idea of the Local to Local Dialogues and find women being a part
out whether councillors would be interested in participating in such a process. The of many sectors of
Chairperson of the Council assured FOWODE of the Council’s support. This was followed government means
that the same women
by a meeting with women councillors of the Division which was organised to introduce are in positions to
the Local to Local Dialogues. influence and impact
policies and
It was clear in the introductions that elected women councillors also held other leadership programmes at
positions on the executive committee of the division council, self-help community initiatives village, district and
division levels.
and in the lower local administrative units: some were leaders of community based
organizations and others were members of village local councils, local heath committees
and social services committees.
The women
councillors request for
The division officer for welfare stated that more support from women’s organizations was support in both the
needed to help officers improve service provision. She noted that the female technical planning and
staff in local government were “gender-sensitive,” but did not have the skills necessary to implementation of
advocate within their institutions to make them more responsive to women’s needs. She programmes
believed that there was a need to equip women in the public service with the necessary indicates that they are
ready to collaborate
skills and knowledge to change the government structures that they are part of. with civil society
actors in order to
The women councillors wanted FOWODE to work with them not only in the planning and better serve their
designing of initiatives but to continue to partner with them in the implementation stage. constituencies.
The women councillors of Kawempe were given two weeks to identify women’s groups The chairperson’s
from their parishes with whom they would like to work. The leaders of these groups request to share
information and skills
would be supported by FOWODE to articulate their priorities and look for solutions to with community
their problems. leaders and other
members of the
Advocacy Workshop community reflects a
In November 2002, FOWODE organised a dialogue workshop for the grassroots women concern with creating
a broad base of
leaders and the women councillors. The purpose of the workshop was to equip grassroots information and
women leaders with the skills and knowledge in advocacy and lobbying and to lay knowledge at the
strategies to dialogue with councillors and other decision makers. community level.
Language can often be a barrier to grassroots women’s participation. Encouraging ready

translation between languages of the government and the local communities is a good Language can often be
a barrier to grassroots
way to facilitate grassroots women’s participation. women’s participation.
Ensuring translation
The chairperson of Kawempe Division Hajji Nasser Kibirige Takuba opened the meeting between languages of
acknowledging the efforts of women to organise around the needs of communities and the government and
urged the women present to share the information and skills from their workshop with the local communities
is a good way to
other leaders and community members who were not present. The workshop was facilitate grassroots
conducted in Luganda with translation into English to encourage the participation of women’s participation.
women who did not speak English.

Grassroots women present at the workshop not only saw this as an opportunity to get
information and advocacy skills but also wanted to develop links between their community
based organizations and NGOs such as FOWODE as a
means to create an alliance with an organization that could
help to create new institutional mechanisms to dialogue
with the government.
What happened at the workshop?

A session on gender and power relations focused on
women’s access and control over resources as well as
women’s participation in decision-making. The session
sharpened participants’ understanding of the concept of
gender. Grassroots women found that their understanding
Women Listening and Taking Notes at the Workshop. of gender was closely linked to their experiences of
discrimination and the different social roles ascribed to
men and women. Women have a keen sense that men are given more power over
The roles of women
within a society, women.
usually assigned by
men, often dictate the The session on advocacy and lobbying was about representing issues of women to
terms of women’s policy makers and decision makers in order to influence institutions. “Advocacy is an
participation within important tool that can be used to help women to gain recognition, respect, protection
governance.
Realizing this enables and advancement of women’s rights,” the women were told.
women to more aptly
alter the structures of Women were helped when they saw that advocacy is not something alien to them. They
power as they work to have been advocating their whole lives. Much of it is intuitive. The facilitator used this
engage in planning example – when children want something they understand that their father as the head of
and decision-making
processes. the family will be the one to support or disapprove. However, they go through their
mother instead of going directly to their father.
FOWODE
Step-by-Step Guide to Advocacy for Grassroots Women’s Groups
emphasizes the need • Identifying priorities
for the grassroots As the first step towards preparing for a dialogue with local authorities or
women’s groups to national governments, women were asked to identify a clear issue that people
build alliances with need to address. Women were urged to focus on priorities that were common
their elected leaders.
to all women rather than be guided by political affiliations.
• Survey to upgrade information base

Women were asked to conduct a simple survey in the community to ascertain
the gravity of the problem and the facts around it. This equips women’s group
to understand the problem clearly, get all the information right and articulate
the problem. The survey process also helps to start communicating with the
larger community and to find leaders who will support the work of women’s
groups. The survey should be the basis of the advocacy.
• Identifying and lobbying influential allies
In order to build strategic alliances, women were asked to identify people
in the community who have power and can be targeted in the advocacy
effort. The workshop participants listed councillors at different levels and
religious leaders.
• Identifying clear roles for different participants

Resource persons at the workshop emphasised the need to establish
clear roles and responsibilities for each actor involved in collaborative
efforts.
• Expanding the scale of operations

Guiding Women through Advocacy
Building coalitions and support for the advocacy issue is critical for the
success of a project, because the more people that support
the issue, the more pressure will be put on decision makers
to take action. Talking with individuals and groups whenever
the opportunity arises is a necessary first-step in this
process.
Priorities for Action Identified by the Group

Workshop participants identified their priority issues by geographical
areas and made a plan on how to proceed.
Identifying Area Priorities
The Central Group identified domestic violence as their key issue
and identified women council leaders, councillors, religious and
opinion leaders, members of parliament, women on the executive
committee of the local councils, local councils and police as actors
whose support they would seek to address the problem. Following
the workshop, they organised a series of meetings with their women
councillors to work on a structured questionnaire to collect more
information on the problem.
The North Group also identified domestic violence as their issue.

They decided to survey the problem, organise a meeting of women Planning for Community Surveys and Other Future
leaders from the communities, use radio programmes to discuss the Action
problem and send a delegation to talk about the problem of domestic
violence in the Division Council.
The third group, the South Group, decided to address the problem of adolescent sexual
behaviour. The group designed a questionnaire through which they could identify some
of the causes for the problem.
All the groups decided to use the Mama FM, a women’s radio station, to discuss the
problems of adolescent sexual behaviour and violence against women.

From the above activities it is clear that grassroots women’s group have set an agenda
for their elected women representatives at the Division Council. They would like to see
policies and programmes enacted that can contribute to solving the problems.
What Women Said They Learned from the Advocacy Workshop

• Identifying a clear issue.
• Presentation of an issue to local and central governments.
• A better understanding of the concept of gender.
• Dialogue with officials and elected leaders are good ways to transfer
information from government to communities and from communities to
government.
• It is important to collaborate with other community-based organizations in
order to strengthen their knowledge and experience base and to share ideas
on how to address local and national authorities.
ANNUAL BUDGETS: A Site for Dialogue
Analyzing the budget In Uganda, the Local Government budgeting process begins in November and December.
and then lobbying for During this period the districts of Uganda are expected to hold budget conferences where
resource allocations in a number of stakeholders including the policy makers, i.e., local council officials from the
areas that grassroots village to the district levels, technocrats, NGOs and community based organizations. At the
women consider budget conference, the communities are expected to state their priorities. Following the
important is one of the conference, the councillors are given another opportunity to consult communities. After
ways in which women this, recommendations are made and debates take place in different sectoral committees
can make local – health, education, public works and production, gender, youth and elderly where technical
authorities staff from those sectors advise, set priorities and allocate funds to the priorities identified.
accountable
It is mainly at the sectoral committee level that women councillors can play a vital role in
influencing the inclusion of the community proposals into the budget. A lot of lobbying takes
place here and it is hoped that the women councillors who attended the workshop will use
their training in advocacy and lobbying. Failure to lobby at the sectoral meetings means that
The women
councillors recognize they will have to do it when the whole council is debating the draft budget estimates at which
the value of working stage incorporating more requests is difficult.
with the women’s
groups in identifying Gaining the Support of Influential Allies
priority issues for the The Division Chairperson collaborated on the planning and this will be an added
communities. Most of advantage to women as they lobby women councillors to incorporate grassroots women’s
them mentioned that concerns into the forthcoming financial budgets
they would probably
not be in a position to
enter into policy Women councillors promised the women’s groups that they would invite them to attend
dialogue about the council meetings. The Local Government Act allows the public to attend council meetings
issues identified by the as observers, but this requires the councillor to inform her constituents about the schedule
women if they had not of the council meetings and also to mobilize them to attend. Sometimes it may require
been in this workshop
that connected them provisions of transport to attend the meetings.
to members of
women’s groups. Two Ways Grassroots Women Identify Success
1. Plans and budgets that reflect women’s concerns.
2. Regular ongoing dialogue between women and authorities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Kenya Local to Local Dialogue, GROOTS Kenya
The preparation of this report has been a team effort involving contributions and inputs
from a range of persons in the Mathare Settlement, Government officers and other
development partners. It builds upon a set of personal experiences shared during the
consultative workshop, individual and group meetings and consultations by GROOTS,
Kenya secretariat, members of GROOTS and community leaders.
The Local to Local Dialogues could not happen without the dedication of the following
people from critical stakeholder groups: Grace Masese of the Ministry of Local
Government, David Mshila of STDP/GTZ, Beatrice Ndungu of NCC, Nelly Bosire of NCC,
Hilda Acheing of WOFAK, Kayole, George Onyiro of the Ministry of Lands and Settlement,
Charity Gatari of GROOTS Kenya, Maureen Danuh of GROOTS, Calvin Kangara of
RECTCO, Patrick Ogutu of RECTCO, Nancy Oyoo of United Grassroots Organization,
Councillor Kamande of Mathare Ward, and Councillor Wanjohi of Huruma Ward. Special
gratitude to Emmy M’mbwanga of the Ministry of Local Government for documentation
and Njuguna Njenga and Patrick Muraguri who supported with facilitation.
In particular, GROOTS Kenya would like to recognise the efforts of the following individuals
who were all a fundamental part of the dialogue process: Patrick Okumu, Irene Bulionga,
Florene Njoki, Tom Oketch, Moses Moracha, Eunice Wairimu, Dominic Otieno, Nancy
Wanjiru, Eunice Klunya, Monica Wanjiru, Lydia Mukama, Murage Musosa, Monica Nduko,
Calvin Mbugua, Patrick Ogutu, Thomas Oketch, Mark Opondo, Peninah Muthoni, Samson
Kasimu, Sabina Wanjiku, Anthony Kinyanjui, Ann Wambui, Ester Wanjiru, Eunice Wairimu,
Margaret Mwikali, John Kinyanjui, Monica Waithera, Alice Nduku, Florence Kimuto, Virginia
Wanjiru, Mary Mumbi, Wambui Githu, Lucy Wambui, Kavata Mutie, Mary Wanjiku, Winfred
Njeri, Floreance Wangare, Rehab Wanjiku, Teresias Wanjiku, Jane Kavura, Mercy Wanjiku,
Judith Omurali, Beatrice Owouri, Reberata Wairumi, Sarah Njoki, Joseph Auther, Jane
Muringu, Marther Nyambura, Jane Njeri, Judy Nyambura, Winnie Wairimu, Ebrahim Otieno,
Hilda Ochieng, James Kyalo, Marram Abudala, Libarata Wairimu, Winfred Njeri, Lucy
Wambui, Wambui Gethu, Mary Mumbi, Mary Muikali, Ann Wanjiku, Grace Wairimu, Wycliffe
S. Wanjiku, John Kinyanjui, Eunice Wairimu, Maritha Nyamburi, Stephen Juma, Judy
Nyambura, Florence Njoki, Penina Muthoni, Jane Kafura, Margaret Njeri, Janet Wirimu,
Eunice Wanjiku, Mary Wanjiku, Beatrice Mwangi, Sabina Wanjiku, Florence Kemunto,
Sarah Njoki, Lydiah Mokema, Winnie Wamboi, Mary Bulinga, Felista Nyambura, Rachel
Waithera, Rahab Wanjiku, Beatrice Awour, Judith Omurai, William Osoro, Thomas Oketch,
Mark Opondo, Moses Moracha, Eunice Kwea, Jane Wamboi, Ann Wangoi, Winnie Wanja,
Nancy Wanjiru, Joseph Alla, Eunice Wairimu, Ann Nduko, Nelius Nyambura, Alice Nduko,
Mary Wamboi, John Chege, Muluneh Chado, Godfrey Buyekane, Patrick Mathai, Ibrahim
Otieno, Florence Wangare, Kinyanjui Anthony, Samson Kasimu, Ann Wamboi Karanja,
Virginia Wanjiru, Margaret Mwikali, James Kyalo, Dominic Otieno, Rose Omia, Esther
Wanjiru, Pauline Wanjiku, Teresia Wanjiku, Seluya Akhonya, Mercy Wanjiku, John Mwangi,
Beth Wangui, Jane Njeri, Grace Nungari and Ann Wanjiru.

Russia Local to Local Dialogue, ICIWF
Special thanks for their dedication and commitment to facilitating Local to Local Dialogues
goes to Semenets Nikolay Yakovlevich, the Chairman of the Commission on State Building
and Local Self-Management of Saratov Oblastnaya Duma; Suetov Aleksandr Nikolaevich
the Chairman of the Saratov Committee on Management of Property; Trushkina Lyubov
Vasilievna, the Secretary of the Commission on Teenager’s Affairs and Protection Rights
in Government of the Saratov oblast; Pavlova Nataliya Anatolievna, the Chairwoman of
the Commission on Teenager’s Affairs and Protection Rights in Saratov Administration;
Oleynik Mihail Stepanovich the Chief of Department of the Economic Analysis and
Forecasting of the Volga District Administration of Saratov; and Dzhashitov Aleksandr
Emmanuilovich, the Chairman of the Association of the Territorial Self-Governance
Committees.
Argentina Local to Local Dialogue, CISCSA

Special thanks to everyone who was of assistance in the City of Cosquin, including:
Amalia Airasca, Gabriela Kelmolj from the Municipal Women’s Council; Claudia Peirano,
Petra Martin, Enrique Sanchez Rial, Maria Ester Casaletti, Ilda Noya from the Grupo
Intercomunal Rio (Cosquin River Intercommunal Group). Ines Bina, Esther Giusti, Marta
Ricci and Juan Carlos Beccaglia from the Family Community Market.
CISCA would also like to acknowledge the efforts of the following people who were
critical to the Local to Local Dialogue process: Ana Falú, Liliana Rainero, Maite Rodigou,
Alfonsina Guidara, Graciela Tedesco, Georgia Marman, Celeste Bianciotti, Sofía Monserrat
and Veronica Torrecillas.
Tanzania Local to Local Dialogue, WAT

Special thanks goes to the following individuals and organizations who worked to make
the Tanzania Dialogues possible: Rehema Kerefu Sameji of WLAC, Monica Elias Mhoja
of WLAC, Anna Shayo of WAT, Julius Mvungi, the Cooperative Officer of the Kinondoni
District; Aurelia D. Mzavah, the Community Development Officer of the Kinondoni District;
Hassan Shukurumungu, the Local Councillor of the Mtoni kwa Azizi Ali Ward; the Ward
Executive Officer of the Mtoni kwa Azizi Ali Ward; M. Chande the Ward Executive
Officer of the Sinza A Ward; L. Makame, the Community Development Officer of the
Sinza A Ward;. the Temeke Municipal Director of the Temeke District and the Land and
Planning Officer of Temeke Municipal Council.
WAT would like to recognise the outstanding commitment of the following individuals,
without which the Local to Local Dialogues would not have been possible: Agnes Mwita,
Pili Kindole, Mercy Dirisha, Irene Kayombo, Rachel Burian, Joyner Kingamkono, Rukia
Omar, Lucy Londezi, Maimuna Ramadhan, Jumanne Mwakalinga, Saada Bheri, Anjela
Harson, Anna Selasini, Augenia Arubano, Mwamini Katundu, Esther Alphonce, Tumaini
Limbumba, Hadija Likola, Zuhura Makuka, Advera Russeta, Amina Mwakapesa,
Mwanahamisi King’oma, Alexandriana Segesela, Glory Kinabo, Hamida Manyanya, Salha
Kaganda, Rhoda Christian, Pili Shaban, Rukia Mohamed, Bahati Dollah, Zamda Melakiti,
Siwatu Sadala, Anna Mary Mallya, Mary Joseph, Fatna Kalinga, Rose Albeto, Adventina
Breta, Devota Modest, Hilda Sikonge, Riziki Musa, Miriam Safi, Bahati Idd, Hekima Ahmad
and Mboni Mganga.
Czech Republic Local to Local Dialogue, Mothers Centres

Special thanks to the town of Breznice, the nursery schools, primary school and art
school in Breznice, the sport club “Falcon,” the castle Breznice, the senior house
Breznice, Sublima Invest, the local media and individual volunteers.
Individuals who made the success of the project possible include: Jitka Bartáková,
Dáša Nesvedová, Ivana Švejdová, Milana Mašková, Mirka Jungová, Jaroslav Kozlík,
Jaroslav Hlaváè, Jaroslava Je•ková, Jan Hašek, Jiøí Karas, Eva Peštová and Aleš
Brotánek.
Uganda Local to Local Dialogue, FOWODE

The Local to Local Dialogue process in Uganda was made possible only through the
efforts of a diverse group of people.
We are greatly indebted to the Chairperson of the Kawempe Division, Hajji Nasser
Kibirige Takuba, with whose consensus we embarked on the implementation of the
project and who supported us throughout its implementation.
In particular, thanks go to the District Women Representative of Kawempe North, Ms.

Florence Namayanja, and the female councillors for Kawempe Division who embraced
the project and ensured its success, especially Rose Matovu, Alice Tebyasa, Josephine
Mayanja, Hafisa Kisitu, Gorreti Mayanja, Alisat Sembuya and Josephine Lwanga. Special
thanks to Rose Matovu and Hafisa Kisitu; members of the Executive Committee of
Kawempe Division and Mary Nsubuga, Welfare Officer Kawempe Division who were
very keen on ensuring the effective implementation of the project by the other female
leaders.
FOWODE would also like to recognise the women from the community groups whose
commitment to the concerns of the local communities was a much-appreciated part of the
Local to Local Dialogues.
Last but by no means the least, FOWODE is grateful to Ms. Winnie Babihuga, who facilitated
the workshop, and Ms. Beatrice Mugambe, who documented the entire Local to Local
Dialogue project.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
(Available through Stated Organizations)
Huairou Commission Publications

1. “Inviting Partners to Partner: Creating a Partnership Learning Model and Code
of Conduct.” Jacqueline Leavitt. Huairou Commission, 2000.
2. “Huairou Book on Governance.”
3. “Engendering Governance and Development: Grass-roots Women’s Best

Practices.” Edited by Sangeetha Purushothaman and Monica Jaeckel. Huairou
Commission, 2001.
4. “Advancing Governance threough Peer Learning and Networking: Lessons

learned from Grassroots Women.” Monika Jaeckel.
GROOTS International Publications

1. “GROOTS Book.” Sangeetha Purushothaman and Monika Jaeckel.
2. “Pamphlet on Governance and Peer Learning.” Monika Jaeckel.
3. “Neighbourhood Women Source Book.”
CISCSA Publications
These and other publications are available at www.redmujer.org.ar.
1. “Ciudades para varones y mujeres. Herramientas para la acción” [Cities for men
and women. Tools for action] Editor: Ana Falú
Authors: Rosario Aguirre, Carlos Larrea, Ma. Victoria Heikel, Patricia Provoste,
Liliana Rainero, Olga Segovia, Alejandra Valdés.
CISCSA - UNIFEM - LAC Women and Habitat Network, 2002.
2. “Ciudad y Vida Cotidiana. Asimetrías en el uso del tiempo y del espacio” [City
and Everyday Life. Asymmetries in the use of space and time]
Edited by Ana Falú, Patricia Morey y Liliana Rainero.
Córdoba, Argentina, 2002.
3. “Guía para la Formulación y Ejecución de Políticas Municipales dirigidas a

Mujeres” [Guidelines for Women on the Formulation and Implementation of
Municipal Policies] Red Mujer y Hábitat - LAC [LAC Women and Habitat
Network]
UNIFEM - Brazil and Southern Cone. Cuaderno de Trabajo Nro. 72, Serie:
Cuadernos de Trabajo. 2nd Edition CISCSA (Centro de Intercambios y
Servicios Cono Sur Argentina) 1st Edition PGU (Urban Management
Programme) - Quito, Ecuador.
Mayo 2000. Córdoba, Argentina. Noviembre 2002.
4. CD ROM: Gobiernos Locales, Políticas para Mujeres [Local Governments,

Policies for Women]
Produced by CISCSA - Red Mujer y Hábitat LAC [LAC Women and Habitat
Network]; with the support of UNIFEM, UMP, REPEM, IULA Argentina, Unidad
Temática Género y Municipio Red de Mercociudades [Gender Thematic Unit,
Mercocities Network] Córdoba - Argentina. 1st Edition: September 1999.
FOWODE Publications
1. “Local Government Effectiveness Training Package (LGET).”FOWODE.
2. “A Gender Analysis of the Agriculture Sector Policy and Budget.” FOWODE,

July 2000.
3. “Budgeting for Women and Men: A Handbook for Local Government Councillors,
District Planners and Leaders of Civil Society Organizations.” Prepared by
Winnie Byanyima. FOWODE, 2001.
4. “Winning Elections: A Guide for Women Candidates.” Published by FOWODE

in Collaboration with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.
5. “The Gender Budget 1998/1999.” Edited by Ruth Mukama. FOWODE, 2000.
SSP Publications
1. “Women Builders: Breaking Barriers in Earthquake-Torn Villages.” Max Martin.
Books for Change: India, 2003.
IULA Publications
1. “Local Governments Working for Gender Equality.” A collection of cases
2001, trilingual publication (English-French-Spanish) available for €15 at the
IULA World Secretariat.
2. “IULA Policy Paper: Women in Local Government.” 1998, trilingual publication

(English-French-Spanish) available for €15 at the IULA World Secretariat.
3. “IULA Worldwide Declaration on Women in Local Government.”

Harare, 1998, printed available in English, French and Spanish.
4. “IULA World Wide Declaration of Local Self-Government.”

32nd IULA World Congress in Toronto, Canada, 1993, printed available in
English, French, German and Spanish at the World Secretariat.
5. “Partnerships for Sustainable Development.” North South co-operation within

the framework of Local Agenda 21 Guide to good practice: Africa/Asia/Europe/
Latin America (soon to arrive) Within the framework of the NEDA financed
Local Agenda 21 Charters Programme (1997-2000), 1999/2000
Available in English for €14 from the IULA World Secretariat. The one for Latin
America will be available in Spanish and Portuguese.
United Nations Development Programme – The Urban Governance Initiative (UNDP-

TUGI) Publications
1. Urban Links, the quarterly current awareness service.
2. Action for Better Cities (ABC) Information Series:
• Transportation
• Water
• Corruption
• Women in the Informal Economy
• Disaster Management
• Asset Management
• Solid Waste
3. Action for Better Cities – Tools and Methodologies for Good Urban Governance.
June 2000
4. Generating Good urban Governance – The TUGI Report Cards Users’ Manual.
December 2003.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Huairou Commission UN-HABITAT
249 Manhattan Ave. Global Campaign on Urban
Brooklyn, NY 11211 Governance
USA UN-HABITAT
Tel: (718) 388-8915 P.O. Box 30030, 00100 GPO
Fax: (718) 388-0285 Nairobi, Kenya
huairou@earthlink.net Tel: (254 20) 623216
www.huairou.org Fax: (254 20) 623536
governance@unhabitat.org
www.unhabitat.org
GROOTS Kenya ICIWF CISCSA
Esther Mwaura-Muiru p/b 230, 119019 Moscow Coordinación Latinoamericana
P.O. Box 10320-GPO Tel/Fax: (095)366-92-74 Red Mujer y Hábitat - HIC
Nairobi, Kenya iciwf@okb-telecom.net 9 de Julio 2482
254-20-2718977 or www.owl.ru/eng/women/org001/ X5003CQR Córdoba - Argentina
254-20- 573186 Tel/Fax: 54 (351) 489-1313
gem@agora.com.ar
WAT Network of MCs in CR MC Pampeliska Breznice
Ufipa Street, Kinondoni Široká 15 Tochovická 468
P.O. Box 5914 110 00 Praha 1 262 72 Breznice
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Czech Republic Czech republic
Tel: 2 55 22 2667091 Tel: 04222316407 Tel: 0420318682031
Fax: 2 55 22 2775363 krut@volny.cz www.materskacentra.cz/breznice
wat@ud.co.tz lucie@slauka.cz mcpampeliska.breznice@seznam.cz
www.wat.kabissa.org
FOWODE GROOTS International Society for the Promotion of
Plot 80A Kira Road Communications Area Resource Center (SPARC)
P.O. Box 7176 Kampala, Uganda 249 Manhattan Avenue c/o SPARC, P.O. Box 9389
Tel: 256-41-540241/2 Brooklyn, NY 11211 Bhulabhai Desai Road
Fax: 256-41-540243 USA Mumbai-400 026, India
fowode@utlonline.co.ug Tel: 718 388-8915 Tel: 91-22-3865053
www.fowode.org Fax: 718 388-0285 Fax: 91-22-3887
grootsss@aol.com sparc1@vsnl.com
www.groots.org
The Penang Heritage Trust LUMANTI - Support Group for Asia Women and Shelter
(PHT)/ Asian and West Pacific Shelter Network (AWAS)
Network for Urban Conservation Sumitra Manandhar Gurung, c/o Asian Coalition for Housing
(AWPNUC) Chairperson, P. O. Box 10546, Rights (ACHR)
Khoo Salma Naution, Honorary Kathmandu, Nepal. 73 Soi Sonthiwattana 4
Secretary - (AWPNUC), 120 Tel: 977-61-523 822 Ladprao 110, Ladprao Rd
Armenian Street, 10200 Penang, Fax: 977-61-520 480 Bangkok 10310, Thailand.
Malaysia E-mail: Tel: 66-2-538 0919
Tel: 6-04-263 3985 shelter@lumanti.wlink.com.np or Fax: 662-539 9950
Fax: 6-04-263 3970 sumitram@mos.com.np E-mail: awas_asia@yahoo.co.uk
E-mail:lubisksn@tm.net.my / or achr@loxinfo.co.th
lubisksn@pd.jaring.my
Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) Foundation for the Support of German Mother Centres
Prema Gopalan, Director Women's Work (FSWW) Andrea Laux
CVOD Jain High School Sengul Akcar or Mutterforum Baden Wurttenberg
84 Samuel Street Dongri Nurdane Culgar 41-43 Ludwigstrasse
Mumbai, India 400 009 Galipdede Cad, 149/4 Beyogulu 70176 Stuttgart, Germany
Tel: 91-22-371-9995 Istanbul, Turkey Tel: 711-505-36850
Tel/Fax:: 91-22-370-0853 Tel: 90-212-2490700 Fax: 711-505-36851
ssp2000@vsnl.com Fax: 90-212-2491508 Email: AndreaLaux@epost.de
www.sspindia.org kedv@turk.net Muetterforum.ba-wue@t-online.de
www.kedv.org.tr www.muetterzentren-bv.de

Launched in 1999, UN-HABITAT's Global Campaign for Urban Governance aims to contribute to the
eradication of urban poverty through improved urban governance. A key objective of the Campaign is to
build capacity of local governments and other stakeholders to practice good urban governance,
characterised by the principles of sustainability, subsidiarity, equity, efficiency, transparency and
accountability, civic engagement and citizenship, and security. A wide range of tools and training
materials have been developed, field-tested and adapted for application of these principles in various
contexts. Some are aimed at effecting systemic change, while other are designed to prepare individual
players to enhance their roles in promoting good urban governance.
Local to Local Dialogue: A Grassroots' Women's Perspective on Good Governance is a joint

publication of UN-HABITAT and the Huairou Commission. Produced as part of the Urban Governance
Toolkit Series of the Global Campaign on Urban Governance, this publication addresses ways in which
grassroots women can reconfigure power relationships to advance their interests and thereby transform
the practice of governance. The six Local to Local Dialogues described in this publication are illustrative
of innovative inclusive decision-making processes. They chronicle the experiences and efforts of each of
the women's groups to identify priorities and negotiate with local authorities and in some cases other
government authorities. The strategies laid out herein are drawn from experiences of grassroots
women's organizations in these countries, and can be used to effectively address the challenge of giving
grassroots women a greater voice in decision-making.
UNITED NATIONS HUMAN SETTLEMENTS PROGRAMME

P.O. Box 30030, GPO Nairobi 00100, KENYA
Telephone: 254-20-623216; Fax: 254-20-623536
E-mail: governance@unhabitat.org
Website: http://www.unhabitat.org/governance

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UNITED NATIONS HUMAN

UNITED NATIONS HUMAN

Urban Governance Toolkit Series

UN-HABITAT, P.O. Box 30030, GPO Nairobi 00100, Kenya

Urban Governance Toolkit Series

2. Three Big Ideas................................................................................................19

4. Experiencing Good Governance Internally...........................................................35

5. Assessing Dialogue Initiatives.............................................................................36

Negotiating Priorities: Six Case Studies

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 3

Anna Kajumulo Tibaijuka

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 5

UN-HABITAT’s Good Urban Governance Campaign, of which the Huairou Commission is

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 7

1.1 Where the Local to Local Dialogues Began

Women and Reconstruction in India

Toilets in Indian cities

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 9

Women & the Changing City in Penang, Malaysia

Allegations of unfair allocations, inefficiency and corruption in processing social housing

Securing the right to live in the city, Kathmandu, Nepal

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 11

1.2 The Local to Local Dialogue Initiative

• GROOTS Kenya, Kenya

1.3 The Local to Local Dialogue Guide

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 13

1.4 Who is This Guide For?

For development professionals, this guide provides a new perspective on governance

1.5 Governance, Good Governance and Grassroots Women

1.6 Localising Good Governance

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 15

Location NGO Focus

Russia Information Centre of ICIWF is concerned with how to find

Argentina Centre of Services and CISCSA is working with four

Tanzania Women Advancement Two groups supported by WAT worked

Czech Mother Centres The Mother Centres organised a

Uganda Forum for Women in FOWODE organised a workshop for

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 17

Grassroots women issued their first major international statement on community

While women’s participation in decision-making in global forums have been a major

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 19

2.3 Political Transformation and the Redistribution of Power

Much of the discussion on good governance appears to be about reforming institutions.

By acquiring skills, knowledge and assets; by creating collectives, working on scale

In 2002, a group of Turkish women from disaster-hit communities visited disaster-hit

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 21

In some cases the structures or formations that

While state mandated organizations have the official

Collective Action at Work

Critical Mass of Actors

From an advocacy perspective, widespread participation is necessary to demonstrate

Priority Setting and Consensus Building

Priority Setting and Consensus Building

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 23

3.2 Capacity Building

The Local to Local Dialogues as a capacity building

Capacity Building through Dialogues

In Uganda, FOWODE organised a workshop which helped participants learn how to

Building capacities to manage resources

URBAN GOVERNANCE TOOLKIT SERIES 25

Women in Turkey Using Information Strategically

Consolidating Knowledge and Sharing Learning8